Tuesday, June 5, 2012

May 2012 Market and Planning Update


WHICH WILL YOU CHOOSE: INSPIRATION OR DESPERATION?
Taking action that will truly have a long-term impact on one’s financial situation often requires inspiration or desperation. Typically over time, poor decisions will lead you toward a point of desperation. Taking the easy way out of decisions along the way (spending too much, retiring too early, missing planning and investing opportunities, etc.) will begin to send your financial plan down a hill like a snowball toward a cliff. Desperation is the last-minute reaction that forces those individuals to take drastic steps to avoid falling off the cliff. READ MORE


MARKET COMMENTS & OBSERVATIONS
Although still positive for the year, the S&P 500 index declined 6% during the month of May as tensions increased over European debt problems. Both developed international and emerging markets stock indexes declined sharply in May and they have both experienced a more than 20% decline in the past 12 months. Many emerging countries (China for example) are very dependent upon selling their exports to Europe, so concerns about further economic weakness across Europe has led to the decline in stock prices. Just as we saw in April, out of the five financial market indices represented below, only the two bond indexes posted positive gains for the month.  READ MORE