Quarter 1 - 2023

The quarter in brief as of 03/31/2023⁽¹⁾⁽²⁾

Year to Date

Dow Jones Industrial Average +0.64%

S&P 500 +6.16%

Bloomberg US Credit Corp 5–10-year index + 0.02%

The first quarter of 2023 started with stocks enjoying their best January since 2019. Inflation data suggested that inflation had peaked. However, the Federal Reserve had other ideas and proceeded to raise interest rates twice. In February stocks gave back some of their earlier gains. March was an up and down month for market returns. Then bank failures dominated the news and no surprise, financial stocks fell.

I saw an interesting article that began with the sentence “Social Security is on track to break down right when America will need it the most…. Expected to go insolvent after 2033.” Social Security will pay out more than $1 trillion to 67 million people this year.⁽³⁾

“Social Security is really one leg of that three-legged stool” said Paul Richman… “there is Social Security, private pensions and savings and investments”.⁽³⁾We do not believe that Social Security will go insolvent, and clients can continue to count on its existence, however this does highlight the need to strengthen the other legs of your three-legged retirement stool. Our goal is to try to help you save and keep enough money in retirement to enjoy the retirement lifestyle we all dream of.

Please contact us to review your own retirement portfolio.

Do you have friends, family, or colleagues who you think might benefit from having a conversation with us about this volatility? We would greatly value your referral.

Sincerely,

The Hais Team