Category: Current Events

Happy Holidays from our team at Ferguson Johnson Wealth Management! We thought we would take this time to reflect on the ups and downs of 2022 and look forward to everything that’s to come in 2023. We are so grateful to have such amazing clients and we hope you and your loved ones have a wonderful holiday season. 

Reflecting on 2022

As we give thanks and warm wishes and celebrate the start of the new year, it’s important to reflect on all that we’ve achieved this year. It wasn’t always easy, but we have weathered the storms and we are stronger for it! Inflation, continued stock market volatility, and recession concerns are still on the horizon, but we have high hopes for 2023. 

Whether or not you are glad to see this year go, take time to reflect on all that it has brought and the good things that have come from every victory and trial. 

Looking Forward to 2023

We hope you are excited for everything the new year will bring, and we encourage you to think about what you want 2023 to hold for you. The end of the year is a great time to set new goals, dream about the future, and find renewed motivation.

Use this season to recharge your batteries and create a vision for the coming year so that you can hit the ground running in January. Enjoy some well-deserved rest and get excited for the new year!

Thank You for a Wonderful Year!

Everything our team at Ferguson Johnson Wealth Management does is all due to you. Your loyalty brings new clients to our doors, and your trust helps us build strong relationships that last a lifetime. We hope that in serving you, we have provided your family comfort in knowing that we are here to help whenever you have questions or concerns.

We understand that life changes can happen at any moment, and we want you to rest easy knowing that when you need advice, guidance, or simply someone who will listen, we’re here for you.

As we prepare to enter a new year, we look forward to continuing to help you pursue your financial goals in 2023. Here’s wishing you joy and laughter during the holiday season and a happy new year!

Let’s Connect

Are financial worries of any kind disrupting your joy this holiday season? Don’t hesitate to reach out to check in on your financial plan before the end of the year and set yourself up for a successful 2023 and beyond. Reach out to us at 301-670-0994 or by email. 

It’s honestly pretty weird to have a market crash that has such a simple explanation. An uncontained viral outbreak is endangering public health and disrupting economic activity. That’s the whole breakdown. It’s one sentence.

It would take me 5,000 words to explain the financial crisis from last decade and, even then, you’d have a list of follow-up questions. The ability to succinctly and confidently answer the question “why did markets go down?” is bizarre.

Speaking strictly financially here: I’ve heard a lot of suggestion that this time it’s different. Here’s the real inside information: It’s always different.

Here are several This Time It’s Diffferent™ events that have led to bear markets in domestic equities in the past: Unfettered lending, terrorism, the birth of the internet, an oil crisis, a single day in 1987, war, an extended period of high inflation.

In each case, markets flailed with uncertainty as participants grappled with how to handle events that generated a high degree of uncertainty and worry. What ended up not being different is that markets recovered from each of these This Time It’s Different™ events.

I wanted to follow up on our post from last week that aimed to put the market impact of Coronavirus in perspective. In that post, I talked about how markets and investors have reacted to different recent health crises in the past.

Since then, I’ve come across a few resources that I think help put all the chaos from the last two weeks into perspective.

Starting in December 2016, the U.S. Federal Reserve (the Fed) had been gradually increasing interest rates (specifically, the federal funds rate), until it reached a high two years later in December last year of 2.25–2.50%. As of last month, that changed: The Fed lowered interest rates by 0.25%.

This move was the first rate decrease since the thick of the 2008 recession. While the move was expected, it nevertheless received wide media coverage accompanied by the usual outpour of opinions on whether it will be a blessing or curse to financial markets. As of today, the President is urging the Fed to further decrease rates to zero “or less”.

The Wall Street Journal and Morningstar are fighting. On Wednesday, an in-depth piece ran in the Wall Street Journal that attacked Morningstar’s rating metrics as being misleading and causing individuals, advisors, pension funds, and endowments to make poor decisions about where to invest.

Later that day, Morningstar issued an aggrieved response that claimed that the Journal had drawn incorrect conclusions about their rating methodology and that, despite misunderstandings, the ratings are still a valuable tool for investors.

By this point, it is news to no one that Equifax was hacked resulting in the personal and financial information of millions of people to fall into the wrong hands.

Prediction season is upon us. Towards the end of each calendar year, financial news outlets bring all sorts of voices to our TVs and radios to make predictions of what’s to come next year.

In the coming weeks, you will see all manner of assertions and guarantees. Some will emphatically tell you to invest in one place or avoid another. Others may offer a forecast of the economy or what will happen in Donald Trump’s presidency.

Note that at no point will you see an accounting or reckoning for the mountain of incorrect predictions from last year’s prognostication. Nevertheless, the networks soldier on and continue to peddle their advice.

Next week, Americans will head to the polls for the Presidential Election. Right now (and likely continuing for the next several months) there are prognosticators on every major financial network trying to predict how the market will perform in the short and long term under either Presidential candidate.

We caution clients and investors to not make significant changes to their long-term investment plan based on these predictions.