Flourish Insights

Episode 56: How Statistics Almost Ruined Thanksgiving If you watched the news on Thanksgiving this year, you might have found it to be a negative experience. The statistics generating media headlines about inflation painted a bleak picture. However, it’s important to take a skeptical approach to how statistics are used, because numbers can have a lot of manipulative power. In this episode, we’re d...

Episode #55: Corporate Earnings and Market Bubbles You’ve probably seen the recent headlines asking whether the market is in a bubble, and this strikes fear in many investors. After all, most remember the 2008-2009 burst during the Great Recession, and the quick transition from all-time high to losses of over 30% in early 2020 with the Coronavirus. These memories make the term “market bubble” espe...

Episode 54: Panflation: What is it? When will it end? As evidence-based investors, we typically rely on historical stock market and economic data from the past one hundred years to answer the common questions we’re hearing from our clients. Every once in a while, however, we come upon a question without much historical context - and the current environment certainly qualifies. We’re currently expe...

We’re back with a new format of biweekly episodes, where we dive even deeper into the themes and developments that are driving market activity. In this episode, we discuss the potentially volatile period we are currently facing in the economy and in the markets. The U.S. government is walking the tightrope between the competing ideas of spending and saving, with a contentious political environment...

Episode 52: Update on Meme Stocks In this follow-up to Episode 26 , which discussed the difference between investing and trading, Jay Pluimer revisits the rise of “meme stocks”. There are two sides to every trade, and looking back eight months later, we can better understand several aspects of the waves that meme stocks created in the market. In this episode, Jay tackles questions like: Who made m...

Episode 51: Tapering: Who, What, Why, and When Episode description. Always check back next week for more Flourish Insights with Jay Pluimer and don't forget to check out our insights blog at https://www.flourishinsights.com Please write a review of this podcast on Apple Podcasts or Alexa

Episode 50: Why Invest in the Stock Market In this milestone 50th episode, Jay Pluimer digs into the reasons why the stock market is such an important investment opportunity, and the role it plays in helping investors accomplish their long-term financial goals. He explains how being in the market creates opportunities to benefit from innovations and inventions in the marketplace -- without having...

Episode 49: Let's Talk About Bonds, Baby Are bonds on your mind? You’re not alone! In this follow-up to episode 36, Jay revisits frequent questions about what bond allocations mean for your portfolio in the current climate of rising interest rates. Giving full credit to Salt ‘N’ Pepa, he shares “all the good things and the bad things that may be.” As bonds are a complex topic, this episode provide...

Episode #48: Update on Personal Savings and Spending Rates The COVID crisis changed the landscape of the American economy. One bittersweet consequence is that the average American family is in better financial shape today than they were before the pandemic. So, what shifted over the past 18 months - and what are the implications for the near future? In this episode, Jay Pluimer explores the pandem...

Episode 47: What's Up with the Housing Market? The state of the housing market is a frequent topic of conversation these days, with prices soaring, homes selling in days, and sellers fielding multiple offers above the asking price. In this episode, Jay Pluimer provides historical and supply chain context for the current market, and shares advice for those who may be considering selling in order to...

Episode 46: Revisiting the Inflation Question Inflation is once again a hot topic among economists and investors. Now that we have four months of economic data for 2021, coupled with multiple inflammatory headlines and notable comments from the Federal Reserve, should Americans expect prices for their everyday purchases to rise? In this episode, Jay Pluimer discusses inflation versus transitory in...

Episode 45: Should Anybody Sell in May and Go Away? If you’ve heard the common investing refrain, “Sell in May and go away”, then you may be wondering if taking a break from the markets each summer is a smart move. Although there is historical context for this idea, Jay Pluimer explains why it’s time to stop taking investment advice from a century ago. After all, time in the market is a lot more i...

Episode 44: ESG vs. Big Oil Environmental, Social, and Governance investments have been a popular topic, both on this podcast and in the wider investment context. An important theme in the conversations is that a growing number of institutional and individual investors are taking a new perspective when making investment decisions, specifically to support companies in the clean energy sector. Today...

Episode 43: A Comprehensive View of Your Investments It’s common to have an incomplete picture of your savings and investments. Even the most organized people have the occasional pension plan that has been turned into a cash balance plan, a forgotten or unknown side account set up by a grandparent, or a 401(k) or 403(b) from an old job. Additionally, most people have changed jobs, banks, or broker...

Episode 42: The Return of Value Investments Value-oriented investments have returned to prominence in the stock market, with indications that they may lead the next market cycle. This investment style has shown strong returns over the past eight months, and it is characterized by investing in companies with positive but moderate earnings and profits, usually in the single digits and above, that ar...

Episode 41: Can You Get Back Into the Market Now? It’s been over a year since the bottom dropped out of the stock market during the midst of the coronavirus crisis. At Flourish, we encouraged our clients to stay in the market and focus on the long-term throughout the turmoil. However, not all investors were able to withstand the emotional, psychological, and financial strain of watching account ba...

Episode 40: The Income Replacement Dilemma As you approach retirement, it is essential to plan for how you will replace your current income and support your preferred retirement lifestyle. There are many ways to structure your investments prior to retirement, but the goal should always be to build a long-term saving, investing, and spending plan. Whether you want to travel, buy a second home, or s...

Episode 39: To Crypto, or Not to Crypto? Cryptocurrency is a term used to describe a variety of digital currencies, with the two best known and largest being Bitcoin and Ethereum. Cryptocurrencies have a market capitalization of over $2 trillion as of mid-April 2021, but they are still a very small part of the investment universe when compared to the global stock market at $95 trillion. As a relat...

Episode 38: Is the 60/40 Portfolio Dead? A 60/40 portfolio refers to a traditional mix of accounts with 60 percent invested in U.S. and international stocks, plus 40 percent invested in bonds and cash. This has been the template for a “balanced portfolio” for about fifty years, although the mix of investments has changed a lot over time. Some advisors like to use actively managed strategies to fil...

Episode 37: Mind the Wealth Gap The stock market and the U.S. economy have experienced a spectacular recovery from late March 2020, when the coronavirus crisis had our lives in shutdown mode. This recovery has also highlighted the growing disparity, however, between the “haves” and the “don't have as much.” The term “wealth gap” refers to the unequal distribution of assets across households in Ame...

Episode 36: Bond Investments in a Rising Interest Rate Environment Frequent headlines over the last few months reference two similar messages: “Death of the 60/40 Portfolio” and “Higher Rates Spell Inflation Doom.” Both warnings are about our current environment of rising interest rates and lower investment expectations for bond investments. It’s a tough pill to swallow because we’ve been in a fal...

Episode 35: What Biases Influence Your Investment Decisions? There are as many different approaches to making investment decisions as there are colors of the rainbow, but they all share a few common elements. At Flourish, we embrace an aspect called behavioral finance, which explains how personal influences and biases affect the financial behavior of investors. Behavioral finance is a relatively n...

Episode 34: COVID Savings Equals Vaccine Spending The fundamental belief for a post-covid economic recovery in the U.S is based on the equation that people saved money while the economy was shut down due to the virus, and that they are ready to spend that money as fast as possible as soon as the economy is fully open again. Is this the case? Though millions of families have struggled to survive du...

Episode 33: How Can the US Handle More Debt? Across the United States, people are receiving money from the recent American Rescue Plan - the third economic stimulus effort over the past year. They total $3.2. trillion, which begs the question: How can the U.S take on this much new debt? The most important consideration is that all three relief plans were cheap to finance because of tools used by t...

Episode 32: Turning 180 Degrees in 12 Months We have now passed the one-year mark since COVID-19 caused an economic recession and a market depression happening simultaneously - and all just one month after the stock market hit a record high in February 2020. Twelve months ago, the news headlines were justifiably horrible. However, dramatic and proactive efforts from the Federal Reserve and the U.S...