23 Jun 2017

Posted at 14:17h in The Friday Brief by

With summertime upon us, complete with tropical storm Cindy soaking the South, and nearly half of 2017 in the books, this might be a good time to review the progress and condition of the capital markets. While forecasting the direction of the markets is not...

14 Oct 2016

Posted at 15:03h in The Friday Brief by

Ever notice after a hurricane how some trees remain standing while others have fallen? More often than not it’s the rigid, unyielding trees that have fallen, while the more flexible survive. This fact of nature provides an important lesson for anyone who wants to plan for...

15 Apr 2016

Posted at 12:31h in The Friday Brief by
How often we've heard, and used, the phrase 'time flies' without giving it much thought. The phrase paints a picture of time flying away from us almost whimsically, like a butterfly, naturally and unburdened. The term actually derives from the Latin, tempis fugit, and originally appeared in Virgil's Georgics - as fugit inreparabile tempus or "it escapes, irretrievable time." Fugit forms the root of our word fugitive, painting a different picture of the flight of time than our butterfly, irretrievably escaping like a thief.

12 Jun 2015

Posted at 10:21h in The Friday Brief by
We are big fans of Seth Godin at Beacon. As a marketing genius, his focus is centered in that industry, but many of his writings are much more broadly applicable. Not long ago a friend and client asked us to review an indexed life insurance product that his buddy, we'll call him Bob, was near zealous over. Bob was so enamored with the promises of the insurance policy that he was even considering changing careers to sell it. A change of some kind was forced on him because he had just been laid off at 50 from a high-level executive position with a major pharmaceutical firm.