It’s been well documented that the pain of loss exceeds the joy of gain. It logically follows that most investors would prefer to outperform a benchmark during a bear market (i.e. lose less) than a bull market (i.e. earn less). Seems intuitive. If markets are up 20% and you earn 15% you’re happy you’re making [...]
Aloha Friends! On behalf of Apollo Wealth Management our President (Howard Haber) is again competing in The G.O.A.T. Games along with his teammates at Catskill Animal Sanctuary (https://casanctuary.org/) to raise much-needed funds for the care and well-being of rescued farm animals. Because of your kindness and compassion CAS took home the gold medal in 2022. [...]
Since the start of the COVID pandemic (Jan 2020) the S&P 500 has provided a total return (inclusive of dividends) of roughly 28%. That’s about 10%/yr and on par with the average annual ROR of the index. That’s some forest! . . . and yet many people are hyperfocused on individual trees: lockdowns supply [...]
Owning a mutual fund or ETF tracking the S&P 500 provides broad diversification, right? After all you’d own 500 stocks. The fallacy is a function of not understanding how a cap-weighted index functions – namely the largest stocks have an outsized impact on returns. This works in both up and down markets. As of Tuesday [...]
Apollo's chief loudmouth (our president Howard Haber) recently appeared on the Dr. Yvonne Kaye podcast to discuss balancing the professional and personal - enjoying helping people achieve their financial goals while maintaining his passion for cycling and animal welfare.
Oil is up. Everything else is down. I need to do something. What do I do? Here is a good place to start.
A deep dive into the OMB’s Historical Tables shows some interesting changes in federal mandatory v. discretionary spending when comparing 1965 to today: Mandatory spending has more than doubled. Social Security and Medicare are the drivers. Defense spending has been reduced by about 75%. The Bush/Thatcher peace dividend? Discretionary spending currently stands at a paltry [...]
A recent estimate by industry trade group Insurance Information Institute puts the national average premium at $1,398/yr. From 2017 to 2020 premium increases averaged 11.4%/yr far outpacing the broader 7.9%/yr rate for all goods and services during the same period. 2021 has provided similar upward pressure on premiums with an average of 6.6% during q3 [...]
In an August 27th letter to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Vice President Kamala Harris (in her capacity as President of the Senate) President Joe Biden announced that he was invoking his legal authority under “national emergency or serious economic conditions affecting the general welfare” to increase salaries for roughly two million members [...]