T his Week from Jesse Hurst
Jesse W. Hurst, II
CFP® CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™
AIF ® ACCREDITED INVESTMENT FIDUCIARY

Making Memories, Building Traditions
 
 
The Holidays are truly my favorite time of the year. In previous Market Commentaries I have discussed our traditional Polish Christmas Eve. A lot goes into this evening but one of my favorite things we do is a day of pierogi making at my dad's house. We have the whole family get together and make dozens of pierogis for not only Christmas Eve but the whole year for my family.
 
This tradition started out with me and my parents when I was in 6th Grade. It was us three and it literally took us 10 hours to make enough for just our Christmas Eve. As the years of gone on we have perfected our craft, added family members and we have increased the number of pierogis we make! It has turned into 15 people at my dad's house cranking out the pierogis. We even all got Polish tee-shirts to wear for the big pierogi making day!
 
 We use a recipe from my Great Aunt that came from Poland. For years my dad would say he did not need to write the recipe down because it was "in his head". We have finally talked him into writing it down, so we can continue to carry this tradition on! This is a favorite thing we do to kick off the holiday season. It is a way for my family to enjoy time together before the hustle and bustle of the holiday gets under way.
 
We hope you get to spend time with your family over the holidays making memories, building traditions and "moving life forward" together!
 
 
Marie
 
   
 


Weekly Market Commentary
December 10, 2018
 


The Markets
  
We're off to a slow start.
 
December is usually the best month of the year for the stock market. It has been since 1950, according to Randall Forsyth of Barron's, but not so far this year.
 
Two issues made investors particularly uncomfortable last week which helped trigger a sell-off that pushed major U.S. stock indices lower.
 
1. Fading optimism about an easing of trade tensions with China. It looked like the relationship between the United States and China might thaw, and Americans were feeling pretty optimistic about a trade truce. In fact, markets moved higher Monday in anticipation.
 
Unfortunately, on the same day that Presidents Trump and Xi Jinping shared a cordial dinner, the chief financial officer of a major Chinese telecommunications firm was arrested at the request of the United States. The Economist reported, "[The company] is a pillar of the Chinese economy - and Ms. Meng is the founder's daughter. The fate of the trade talks could hinge on her encounter with the law."
 
2. A section of the yield curve inverted. Normally, Treasury yields are higher for longer maturities of bonds than for shorter maturities of bonds. Last week, yields on three-year and five-year bonds inverted, meaning yields for three-year bonds were higher than those for five-year bonds. Ben Levisohn of Barron's explained:
 
"Usually when people talk about an inversion, they're talking about the difference between two-year and 10-year Treasuries, or three-month and 10-year Treasuries, which have been useful, though not perfect, predictors of recessions and bear markets. Last week, though, everyone was talking about the three-year and the five-year Treasury inverting - something that usually doesn't get much notice...And for good reason."
 
Historically, these maturities have inverted seven times. In one instance, the country was already in recession. On the other six occasions, recession didn't occur for more than two years. Barron's reported the Standard & Poor's 500 Index gained an average of 20 percent over the 24-month periods following these inversions.
 
Investors' negative response to last week's news may have been overdone. Financial Times reported European and Asian markets firmed up a bit Friday "...as buyers stepped back in after some savage falls on Thursday."
 

Data as of 12/7/18
1-Week
Y-T-D
1-Year
3-Year
5-Year
10-Year
Standard & Poor's 500 (Domestic Stocks)
-4.6%
-1.5%
-0.2%
8.2%
7.8%
11.2%
Dow Jones Global ex-U.S.
-2.2
-14.2
-11.3
2.6
-0.4
5.2
10-year Treasury Note (Yield Only)
2.9
NA
2.4
2.2
2.9
2.7
Gold (per ounce)
2.1
-4.1
-0.9
4.9
0.1
5.0
Bloomberg Commodity Index
1.1
-5.3
-0.4
1.6
-7.9
-2.7
DJ Equity All REIT Total Return Index
0.3
4.4
5.1
8.0
10.1
13.7
S&P 500, Dow Jones Global ex-US, Gold, Bloomberg Commodity Index returns exclude reinvested dividends (gold does not pay a dividend) and the three-, five-, and 10-year returns are annualized; the DJ Equity All REIT Total Return Index does include reinvested dividends and the three-, five-, and 10-year returns are annualized; and the 10-year Treasury Note is simply the yield at the close of the day on each of the historical time periods.
Sources: Yahoo! Finance, Barron's, djindexes.com, London Bullion Market Association.
Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Indices are unmanaged and cannot be invested into directly. N/A means not applicable.

About Time and Money. Elizabeth Dunn, associate psychology professor at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, and Michael Norton, associate marketing professor at Harvard Business School, have been studying whether people should spend money differently. Their goal is to figure out how to get the most happiness for the dollars spent. In Happy Money: The Science of Happier Spending, they explained their experiments:
 
"...We started doling out money to strangers. But there was a catch: rather than letting them spend it however they wanted, we made them spend it how we wanted...changing the way people spent their money altered their happiness over the course of the day. And we saw this effect even when people spent as little as $5...Shifting from buying stuff to buying experiences, and from spending on yourself to spending on others, can have a dramatic impact on happiness."
 
In addition, buying time can improve happiness. How do you buy time? By paying someone else to do tasks you don't like to do - cleaning, grocery shopping, home maintenance, and other tasks. This can relieve time pressure and free up time to do what you really want to do - and that can make you happier.
 
The authors suggest individuals ask a simple question before making any purchase: How will this purchase change the way I use my time? Make sure the answer aligns with the goal of having an abundance of time.
 
Weekly Focus - Think About It
 
"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony."
                                       --Mahatma Gandhi, Leader of Indian independence movement
   
 
 
Best regards, 
 
Jesse Hurst
 
Impel Wealth Management 
 
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These views are those of Carson Group Coaching, and not the presenting Representative or the Representative's Broker/Dealer, and should not be construed as investment advice.
* This newsletter was prepared by Carson Group Coaching. Carson Group Coaching is not affiliated with the named broker/dealer.
* Government bonds and Treasury Bills are guaranteed by the U.S. government as to the timely payment of principal and interest and, if held to maturity, offer a fixed rate of return and fixed principal value. However, the value of fund shares is not guaranteed and will fluctuate.
* Corporate bonds are considered higher risk than government bonds but normally offer a higher yield and are subject to market, interest rate and credit risk as well as additional risks based on the quality of issuer coupon rate, price, yield, maturity, and redemption features.
* The Standard & Poor's 500 (S&P 500) is an unmanaged group of securities considered to be representative of the stock market in general. You cannot invest directly in this index.
* All indexes referenced are unmanaged. Unmanaged index returns do not reflect fees, expenses, or sales charges. Index performance is not indicative of the performance of any investment.
* The Dow Jones Global ex-U.S. Index covers approximately 95% of the market capitalization of the 45 developed and emerging countries included in the Index.
* The 10-year Treasury Note represents debt owed by the United States Treasury to the public. Since the U.S. Government is seen as a risk-free borrower, investors use the 10-year Treasury Note as a benchmark for the long-term bond market.
* Gold represents the afternoon gold price as reported by the London Bullion Market Association. The gold price is set twice daily by the London Gold Fixing Company at 10:30 and 15:00 and is expressed in U.S. dollars per fine troy ounce.
* The Bloomberg Commodity Index is designed to be a highly liquid and diversified benchmark for the commodity futures market. The Index is composed of futures contracts on 19 physical commodities and was launched on July 14, 1998.
* The DJ Equity All REIT Total Return Index measures the total return performance of the equity subcategory of the Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) industry as calculated by Dow Jones.
* Yahoo! Finance is the source for any reference to the performance of an index between two specific periods.
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