Fourteen years ago I was dating a girl and a friend told me, “Tim, you’re peaking. Your search for a wife is over. You should put a ring on her finger before she gets away.” He was right. It was great advice, I took it, and now she’s stuck with me.
The peaking is even more obvious now!
The same advice could be given to Jerome Powell head of the Federal Reserve who is in charge of establishing interest rates.
“J Powell, you’re peaking. You’re winning the fight against inflation. Inflation has peaked and so should rates. Stop raising interest rates before this growing economy gets away from us and we end up in a recession.” (I know, the metaphor’s kind of a stretch, but it’s the best I could do.)
Yesterday, inflation slowed again marking the 9th consecutive month of slowing, and the lowest reading in two years. Prices rose 5% from a year ago, down from 6% the month prior and peak inflation from last July is clearly visible in the chart below.
This is what the Fed has wanted to see happen since it started aggressively raising rates a year ago. To be clear, the target is 2% inflation and we’re still significantly above that. However, we’re much closer than we were last July thankfully and still trending in the right direction. This is good news because the Fed can HOPEFULLY stop raising rates now.
So why does this matter? Inflation peaked, rates are peaking, and next stocks should peak. We want stocks to peak. (Has your cofusion peaked yet?)
Banking Crisis
One situation that tested nerves and stocks last month was a miniature banking crisis. A handful of banks got swept up in the drama as depositors have been pulling money out of their checking and savings accounts to earn more interest elsewhere. We’ve been doing this in our investment accounts as we move cash to CDs and Money Markets to benefit clients. When a significant number of people all do this at the same time it can put a strain on the banks.
Fortunately, this only affected a few institutions and no depositors were harmed during the crisis. The bank drama seems to have died down now and appears to be behind us. Warren Buffet was quoted recently that he would bet anyone $1 Million that no depositor would lose a single dollar as a result of this crisis. We agree.
Merger
The merger between TD Ameritrade and Charles Schwab is going as planned and is now less than five months away. Schwab has set the date of September 4th, 2023 to move all clients from a TD Ameritrade account to a Schwab account. No changes will be made to your investments during the merger.
There will be no paperwork or signatures needed to make the change. However, clients will start to receive notices of the changes from SMB and Schwab starting as early as this month.
Again, there is nothing to fill out or sign. If a client does nothing, the account will move to Schwab and we will manage it just as we’ve always done. The biggest change will be that accounts and statements will have a TD logo on Friday, September 1, and a Schwab logo on the Tuesday after Labor Day, September 4. That’s pretty much the extent of it.
Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns about this.
We hope taxes didn’t hurt you too badly. Now that tax season is winding down we’re planning to call clients to touch base about all things financial. We look forward to talking with everyone soon.
Thanks for reading,
