Market Memo

May 2024 – By Bob Veres

It seems like every news cycle includes an article about how the Social Security trust fund is about to run out of money.  ‘About’ may be somewhat of a misnomer.  Estimates vary, and change as the economy goes through its ups and downs, but the latest estimate suggests that the trust fund will run out of money by 2035, in 11 years.

Market Minute

May 2024 – By Bob Veres

You might think that hourly wages and worker compensation closely tracks the inflation rate, but as you can see from the graphic, the two are in a constant tug-of-war; wages sometimes rise faster than inflation, and often they lag.  Over the last year, wages have been winning this particular race; hourly wages are up 4.5% from this time last year, while the inflation rate, again over the past year, has come in at 3.4%.  In March, the last month where we have statistics, the difference was 4.7% annualized (wages) vs. 3.5% annualized (inflation).

Market Memo

April 2024 – By Kyle Rohrwasser

Gifting and charitable contributions are a common occurrence for many of us. No matter if it is a large nonprofit organization or the local shelter down the street, we all have our own calls to action. We here at Vantage look to optimize that by gifting appreciated securities to avoid capital gain tax and reduce taxes via increased itemized deductions. We use a DAF (Donor Advised Funds) account which allows us to do this simply and efficiently. It is a wonderful tool that allows for convenient gifting as well as multi-year contributions in single tax years for some additional tax planning. Since you can keep the funds/cash in the account you can do large one-time gifts and distribute it over the course of years.

Market Minute

April 2024 – By Scott Rosenquist, CFA®

Artificial intelligence was the dominant theme for investors and the financial markets over the past year. It led equity markets higher with technology companies benefitting from the build-out of data centers and the necessary infrastructure to run AI algorithms.  Some investors are asking themselves, have I seen this before? referring to the late 90’s dot com bust.  One key ingredient missing now is a rush of companies going public to take advantage of the current market environment.  At least not yet.  I do find it interesting that most private AI-focused companies are partnering with larger public companies (with deep pockets) rather than going public. These companies can receive funding without going through the hurdles of a public offering.  AI has gained a lot of traction from my previous post about this topic.