By Kyle Tetting
In a 2021 interview, a John Deere executive disclosed that the farming equipment manufacturer employed more software engineers than mechanical engineers. Fast-forward a couple of years to an Artificial Intelligence revolution, and the 1837 company’s transformation to a technology business makes sense. It’s not that the basics of farming have changed drastically, it’s that we’ve created equipment capable of precisely measuring the minutiae of critical tasks. Learning to employ all that information takes time.

By Kyle Tetting
While summer tends to be slow for stocks in general, this one seems especially so. Part of the explanation could be recency bias. The summer of 2022 may have conditioned investors to expect more volatility. Absent the shocking inflation numbers of last June, it’s difficult to match the market movements we saw a year ago. But it’s also clear that the economic landscape now appears much less uncertain.

By Kyle Tetting
With half a year in the books, it’s an interesting time to circle back on past prognostications. On the heels of 2022 – one of the worst for balanced portfolios in 100 years – earlier forecasts were decidedly more difficult. Add in a Federal Reserve that was still talking tough and the potential for further economic weakness, and we’d be forgiven for erring on the side of caution. Reasonable caution is always appropriate, but investors too focused on the risks missed out on a lot across the first six months of 2023.

By Kyle Tetting
Despite an incessant focus on the debt ceiling conversation and what appeared to be a surprisingly optimistic response by markets in recent weeks, actual progress on the matter has been slow. As I write this, there remains some time before the likely June 1 deadline. But, as with most market-related observations, by the time you read it, much of it could be dated. As a result, our current dependence on politicians has investors aiming their portfolio away from some risk that we aren’t even sure is out there.

By Kyle Tetting
It’s hard to argue with the year-to-date success of the vast majority of investment categories. As I write this on April 26, broad measures of stocks like the S&P 500 had gained more than 6% with only a few trading days left in April. Similarly, less volatile measures like bonds have added half as much or more. While the gains are encouraging, I am struck by how pessimistic many of the headlines remain. “Markets climb a wall of worry,” the saying goes, and that seems especially true now, though investing from a place of worry is tough.

By Kyle Tetting
While the postmortem on Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse is still being written, there’s plenty of blame to go around. From bank executives and their advisors to the bank’s largest clients, to the Federal Reserve itself. There may be bits of blame for each, but the harsh reality is that such a high-profile bank failure has resulted in many questions about who or what is next.

By Joel Dresang
We let too much cash build up in our checking account, and it was costing us money. […]

By Kyle Tetting
There’s a tendency in investing to speak about expectations for returns. Projections and forecasts are useful and necessary, especially as we try to plan for the future. However, those same tools are fraught with challenges. For starters, the crystal ball is always a little cloudy. Especially with the unknown timing and magnitude of the Federal Reserve’s remaining steps to fight inflation, long-term optimism can get overlooked.

By Kyle Tetting We’ve been through this before. In July of 2011, Bob Landaas shared his thoughts on Congress’s hesitation to raise the debt ceiling. As Bob commented then, “My respect for politicians continues to sink by the day.” In simple terms, the debt ceiling is a statutory limit on the amount the United States […]

By Kyle Tetting
The most common question as we turn to the new year is what to expect in the year to come. That’s a logical question, even more so in the wake of the challenges we faced in 2022. However, any answer to the question comes with a major caveat. For starters, 2022 was exceptional for how closely the calendar year encapsulated the market decline.

As interest rates have been rising, investors have seen the values of their bond holdings shrink. In a MONEY TALK VIDEO, Kendall Bauer points out some of the upsides of the rising rate environment. He spoke with Kyle Tetting as part of the 2022 Investment Outlook Video. […]

In a MONEY TALK VIDEO, Paige Radke explains how conditions have shifted favor between growth and value stocks – and what it means to investors. […]