Ditch the index. Leave it behind. Indices are arbitrary, they have their path to follow you have yours. Let’s face it, you know where you want to go, the index doesn’t. Calibrated thinking places your goals as your index—your barometer. By charting your path, balancing your investment risk, and untethering yourself from an arbitrary index, you will have bought yourself freedom: freedom to turn off the noise.
At Calibrate Wealth, we start with Why — the why you do this in the first place. Restated: we calibrate your plan by starting at the end and looking back to where you are. Next, we help you define your path. We make your path safe and direct; we continually review, readjust, and repeat.
At Calibrate, we put the focus on things we can control. We start with your input, risk. And risk is, after all, what you add when you invest. In contrast, returns are the hoped-for output from your investment. Calibrated investing begins with the risk input and works forward. We balance risk between asset classes and between market outcomes. We accept the future as being uncertain, and build investment strategies with that understanding. We build your strategy designed to accommodate all types of market climates, not just one for the “good times.”
by Zach Marsh on May 20, 2022
US equity indices, as of 10am, seem nearly certain to log another down week. Absent a dramatic turnaround this afternoon, this down week will mark the 7th consecutive losing week for the large-cap index. Year-to-date the S&P 500 now sits nearly 18.5% below its all-time closing high set on January 3rd of this year. The tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 and the small-cap Russell 2000 are both down roughly 30% from their all-time highs. In the indexed equity space, no place has been safe this year.
by Zach Marsh on May 6, 2022
We witnessed another choppy week in the stock market. On Wednesday the Fed announced that it was raising the Federal Funds rate by 0.50%, but further announced that it was not considering future hikes of 0.75% or 1.0%. It did, however, say that it foresees the need to raise another 50 basis points at each of its next two meetings. The market’s immediate response to this news was to send the S&P 500 up by over 3% Wednesday afternoon. The following day, the market took it all back and then some, dropping over 3.5%.
by Zach Marsh on Apr 1, 2022
2022 has gotten off to a rough start. Stocks began to buckle under the prospect of the Fed’s response to runaway inflation even before Russian forces invaded Ukraine. Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine not only exacerbated the prospects for lasting inflation, but also the prospect for a continually destabilized geo-political world. Before the markets staged a comeback the last half of March, the Nasdaq 100 and the Russell 2000 were each down over 20%, while the S&P 500 was down over 10%. The final tally for the quarter for U.S.
by Zach Marsh on Mar 11, 2022
At risk of sounding like a broken record, the monthly CPI report came out this week and showed another four-decade high inflation reading. As much as the President would like to lay the blame at the feet of Russia’s invasion into the Ukraine for our current inflation crisis, the dye was cast long before military action began. To be fair, in my opinion the dye was cast even before the 2020 election. Inflation is, and has always been, a monetary problem. The Federal Reserve is the governor of monetary policy and as a result they are responsible.