Financial Floyd Blogspot

This week GDP numbers for the first quarter came out and the numbers came out higher than expected ( Annualized rate of 3.2 versus an expectation of 2.5%). MarketWatch published an article on Friday and a couple of good takeaways worth mentioning are: 1. GDP Growth was driven by inventory building and trade 2. State and Local Government spending jumped 3.9% 3. Fed rate cut might be in question This growth rate hasn't been seen since 2015, but despite the rosy headline, the devil was in the details. Because of the pending trade sanctions, companies pulled forward future purchases in 2018 to ensure that they had enough product coming into 2019, hence muting our typical trade deficit.  The Government shutdown also played a significant part because of the compensatory payments that needed to be made to Government employees.  The economy has been doing well this year (S&P500 up over 10% YTD), and with other countries turning the corner (China in particular) in t...

Good Morning, Entrepreneurship is a hard road, and accessing capital always seems to be a barrier for most. Forbes published an article this week about how to access capital and fundraise effectively. While this article pertains more to business owners, investors who are looking to get into private equity should also take time to read this article.  As always a link to the article is in this blog, but a couple of points I found interesting were: 1. Working capital is crucial to have on hand 2. Online equity crowdfunding platforms are a way to access capital outside of family/friends, the SBA, or a traditional bank loan 3. Having an effective social media presence is crucial (maximizing LinkedIn, Blogging, etc.) This article did a great job of providing the steps, but from experience, it comes down to doing the research, homework, and coming prepared. A business plan might not always be needed, but at a minimum, a presentation should be available. People want to know how well you u...

Good Morning, Have you ever wondered who is paying for financial advice? CNBC recently published an article about who is paying for this advice and a couple of days later Investment News released an article about a new type of service being offered by a major Brokerage firm. The CNBC article highlighted the following points: 1. Most American's reject financial advice 2. 4 out of 10 workers guessed the  amount needed for retirement based on a study done by Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies 3. Based on a CNBC survey, those making more than $150k a year were most likely to seek the help of a financial professional or money management app 4. People making less than $50k a year were most likely to not manage their financial future While this might sound very dreary, the Investment News article made an announcement about Charles Schwab now offers service that a client can receive investment management and financial planning advice for a monthly fee of $30 (including a ...