Here Comes the Worst Month of the Year

“Wake me up when September ends.” Green Day The S&P 500 moved back to new highs last week and gained in the month of August during a president’s second term for the first time since 1950, so that’s the good news. The bad news: summer is over and we aren’t out of the woods yet, …

10 Takeaways From Our Conversation With Cliff Asness

Ryan Detrick and I just celebrated recording our 150th episode of Facts vs Feelings. It’s been three years since we got started and we want to thank you all wholeheartedly for the amazing support. Our listens and views have been growing, and we’ve had a lot of fun along the way, including having some amazing …

Why Friday Could Be A Historically Bullish Trigger

“I know one thing, that I know nothing.” Socrates   The S&P 500 was down five days in a row heading into Friday of last week, although the losses were fairly minor with only one day down more than 0.5% (and that one barely). Then Jerome Powell opened the door for a rate cut in …

Gold Is Shiny Enough for a Strategic Portfolio Allocation

We’ve made no secret for our love for the shiny object over the last two and half years (and not just because my name is derived from the Hindi word “sona,” which means gold). I wrote about gold as a crisis hedge back in March 2023, amid the Silicon Valley Bank Crisis. We were amongst …

7 Policy Mistakes That Could Undermine Our Bullish Policy Outlook Updated

“If pro is the opposite of con, does that make progress the opposite of Congress?” -famous quip On July 20, we passed the first six months of the second Trump administration, or 1/8 of the way into Donald Trump’s second term. Over time we have been updating our view of potential policy risks, within the …

Five Things We Are Watching

“You won’t lose your job to AI, you’ll lose your job to someone who uses AI.” Jenson Huang, CEO at NVIDIA I read a lot each week and it seemed like the past few days I’ve come across some very interesting charts or ideas. In today’s blog, I wanted to share some of what I’ve …

What the Last Six Months in Markets May Mean for the Rest of the Year

Monday, June 30, concluded an extraordinary first half for markets. The end of the half is always a good time to look at what’s been happening in markets and think about implications for the second half of the year. Here are some highlights from the first half of the year and what they might tell …

Carson Group Fully Acquires Jacob William Advisory in Maryland

Omaha, Neb. – July 1, 2025 – Carson Group, a leading wealth advisory firm with over $42 billion* in assets under management (AUM), today announced that it will acquire Jacob William Advisory in Cockeysville, Md., led by founding partners and wealth advisors Mark Ring and Dan Morrison, CFP®, ChFC®, CASL®. The team manages approximately $300 million in …

The Fed Stays on The Sidelines, Paralyzed by Tariffs and Who Is Paying Them

The Federal Reserve (Fed) kept rates unchanged in the 4.25-4.50% range at their June meeting, as was expected. The most notable change in their official statement was that the Fed believes uncertainty concerning the economic outlook has reduced – but that’s only relative to a couple of months ago (post-Liberation Day). They still believe uncertainty …

Why Mom and Pop Might Now Be the Smart Money

“The stock market is a device for transferring money from the impatient to the patient.” Warren Buffett, Chairperson at Berkshire Hathaway We’ve been talking a lot the how during this near bear market and historic bounce back of 2025, retail investors have been buying aggressively, while institutional money managers have been scared and underinvested. Historically, we’ve …

You Never Know

“You never know when you will get that call. Enjoy yourself.” Ryan Detrick, Chief Market Strategist at Carson Group Today is the Friday before Memorial Day weekend, which is a day I will never forget. One year ago today my baby brother called me, which at first seemed similar to the thousands of other times …