Keen On Retirement

Interest rates, inflation forecasts, and long-term market trends were just a few of the topics Matt Wilson, CFP® covered in our recent 2024 Q2 Market Update Webinar, "Gain Insights on the Economy & Markets." The follow-up questions we tackle on today’s show are largely geared toward folks who are approaching the retirement transition with some understandable anxiety. I hope that as we provide a little more detail on these important topics and the overall state of the economy, folks will feel more confident in their financial plans and more excited about retirement.

My team at Keen on Retirement has been hard at work analyzing the question that's top-of-mind for many of our listeners. And after crunching the numbers ... Yes, it looks like Taylor Swift will be able to attend the Super Bowl! She's scheduled to perform in Tokyo the night before our Chiefs take on the 49ers, but thanks to a 17-hour time difference -- and, presumably, a private jet -- we do expect to see Taylor in Las Vegas. All kidding aside, I'm especially excited for this round of listener questions. A couple of folks who have been with Keen Wealth for many

Happy 2024 from the team at Keen Wealth Advisors! The Dow sent us into the New Year on a high note -- literally -- by hitting a new all-time high in December on the back of some very positive economic news. Employment and job creation are still strong. It looks like we're going to avoid the recession that some analysts have been predicting for the better part of two years. And the Federal Reserve is hinting that it might be done with interest rate hikes as well. That's a pretty good jumping-off point for a year that, I can confidently predict, sure won't be boring. Elections, Olympics, big changes to how and where we work, advances in AI and other tech, ongoing conflicts across the globe, Leap Day -- there's a lot to look forward to in 2024, but also a lot of very serious matters to keep tabs on, and a lot of potential distractions to filter out of your financial planning.

How do you adjust your financial plan to cope with inflation, higher interest rates, and an up-and-down economy? Our most popular blogs and podcasts of 2023 all touched on that question in some way, especially from the perspective of retirees living on a fixed income. Our discussions also eventually arrived at a similar conclusion: you need to have a plan! Comprehensive financial planning puts tools at your disposal that can keep you on track for a successful retirement, no matter what’s happening in the outside world. And working with an experienced advisor, like my team at Keen Wealth, could potentially eliminate so much of the worry and uncertainty from figuring out what moves are going to keep your short-term needs and your long-term goals in sync.

At its meeting on June 14th, the Federal Reserve did something that it hasn't done in 15 months: it decided not to raise interest rates. This slight pause in the Fed's battle against inflation gives us an opportunity to discuss the state of our economy and the markets at the midway point of 2023. On today's show, we take stock of the latest market data, put current inflation and interest rates in their proper context, and consider the United States' place in the global economy.

According to our longtime friend Greg Valliere, Washington’s political pros are already looking ahead to the 2022 midterms. And that long-term perspective is already having a major impact on Joe Biden’s agenda for the first hundred days of his presidency, as well as the financial markets and the battle against COVID-19.