Every year is filled with exciting, scary, stressful, eye-catching, all important headlines that turn out to be nothing special in the end. There were a few this year, but the big one was the recurring theme around the Fed raising rates.

Well, we can finally toss this one in the nothing special pile too because it’s official – a 0.25% fed funds rate hike was announced Wednesday. The Fed dragged out the most telegraphed move of 2015, until December…and the world didn’t end. Continue Reading…

I plan to do a few things differently next year. Sort of. Nothing drastic, though.

As it stands, the plan is to update the tables – the asset class, sector, etc – with the 2015 full year returns. I’ve already had a few people asking when – so expect it the first week of January.

After that, things are a bit fluid because I haven’t quite figured it all out. Continue Reading…

If you kicked off 2015 by rearranging your portfolio for the “impending interest rate hike”, you were really early – like eleven months early and counting.

Well, in twelve days you’ll know if it was worth it because that’s the last Fed meeting for 2015.

Now, before I go further, it’s fair to point out that few people expected rates to go as low as they did. Even fewer thought it would last this long. It’s probably fair to say that even less people think rates will stay low much longer. Continue Reading…