Retirement Investment Advisors
CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professionals in Oklahoma and North Texas.
Will the Fed lower rates?
Last week, in a much-anticipated speech, Federal Reserve (Fed) Chair Jerome Powell said, “In the near term, risks to inflation are tilted to the upside, and risks to employment to the downside—a challenging situation…Nonetheless, with policy in restrictive territory, the baseline outlook and the shifting balance of risks may warrant adjusting our policy stance.”
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Was inflation higher, lower, or steady?
Perspective has a tremendous influence on how we perceive the world around us. If you saw any three-dimensional chalk drawings on sidewalks this summer, you understand how perspective affects understanding. When seen from one direction, a chalk drawing looks flat. When seen from another, a winged dragon surges from a hole in the pavement.
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Fast as a snail.
In July, the weather in Norfolk, England, was perfectly rainy as Bilbo Sluggins won the World Snail Racing Championship with a time of two minutes and 11 seconds. Fans and competitors traveled from the United States, South Korea, and France for the competition. Some arrived with trained gastropods (Training might include a strict lettuce diet and daily workouts climbing vertical surfaces). Others relied on entrants hired from the area’s world-renowned snail stables. Bilbo’s winning pace was just shy of the two-minute record set in 1995, but it was a vast improvement over 2023’s winning time of 7 minutes and 24 seconds.
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How fast will an AI-powered economy grow?
Global economic growth has not always been robust. Until the 1700s, economic growth averaged about 0.1 percent per year and was closely tied to population growth. “Bigger harvests allowed more mouths to be fed; more farmers allowed for bigger harvests,” reported The Economist. Eventually, better-nourished people had ideas about how to improve their lives, and economic growth edged higher.
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This is not the inflation you’re looking for…
In general, everyone who buys goods or services in the United States would prefer to see prices trend lower – and that’s what happened in the earlier part of this year. Over the last couple of months, though, inflation has begun to creep higher.
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Are financial markets too complacent?
In Aesop’s fable, The Boy Who Cried Wolf, a young shepherd repeatedly raises a false alarm. Eventually, the people in his village ignore his warnings. When a wolf appears, the villagers pay no attention to the boy’s cries, confident that “nothing ever happens”.
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Like riders on a giga coaster, investors experienced fear and exhilaration during the second quarter of 2025.
From April through June, investors rode markets up and down, banking through twists of news and events that had market moving potential. They swooped through the uncertain impact of tariffs on economic growth and inflation; the implications of a U.S. Treasury downgrade; the effects of fiscal policy changes in the Big Beautiful Bill; and conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East.
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Major U.S. stock indexes raced to new highs last week.
In a remarkable recovery from April’s double-digit downturn, the Standard & Poor’s (S&P) 500 Index raced to a new record high last week, and so did the Nasdaq Composite Index (Nasdaq). Key drivers behind the ascent included:
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Investors are taking it all in stride.
As Israel and Iran exchanged missile strikes last week, stock markets in the United States remained relatively steady, reported Michael Msika and Phil Serafino of Bloomberg.
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Investors had a lot to think about last week.
A wealth of positive company and economic news lifted markets for much of last week. However, markets stumbled on news that Israel had launched an attack against Iran.
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