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PODCAST

Conservatory Chat

The Wealth Conservatory"s team of fee-only, fiduciary financial advisors give their takes on the latest news, covering an eclectic variety of topics.Disclosure Notice: The Wealth Conservatory® is a Registered Trade Mark of Comprehensive Planning Associates, Inc. - a Registered Investment Advisor with offices in New Hampshire, California, and Missouri. The Conservatory is not licensed to and does not engage in the practice of rendering legal or tax advice. Any discussion of either is for

business investing

All Episodes

2:06

Home Prices Here and Abroad

Conservatory Chat ·

2025/05/28

Buying a home in America is just too darned expensive, what with today’s rapidly rising home prices. Right? You might be surprised to know that, according to a somewhat complicated calculation, U.S. homes, on average, are among the most affordable in the world. To come to that conclusion, the Best Brokers organization calculated how many months of average income, in each country, it would take to buy a 1,076 square foot home—a modest residence by U.S. standards, but in some areas this is a bi...

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1:41

The Yo-yo Effect

Conservatory Chat ·

2025/04/21

What’s up with these huge swings in the markets? Well, (obviously) it’s currently the tariffs. Lately, traders approved of the temporary lifting of the most onerous tariffs on everybody but China. Then, they disliked the tariffs on the delicate chips and the computer assembly sector of the Chinese economy. Next, they applauded when those were lifted. In direct and nearly immediate response, they drove the markets up, down, and up again. In the longer run, both traders and investors depend upo...

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4:08

2025 1st Quarter Investment Report

Conservatory Chat ·

2025/04/04

After two years of stellar returns, the U.S. investment markets have decided to give back some of their recent gains. The risk of a slowdown in consumer spending and the uncertainty over trade wars and tariffs have created some market jitters that are raining on the bull market parade. What's going on? To begin with, it's fair to question whether U.S. companies, in aggregate, were truly 40% more valuable at the start of this year than they were just two short years ago. Sometimes markets get ...

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3:23

Never Time to Panic

Conservatory Chat ·

2025/03/06

With the unprecedented restructuring wave going on across the federal government, unorthodox personnel management, appointment of candidates with controversial backgrounds in the departments they’re running and a wave of tariffs the like of which the world hasn’t seen since the 1930s, it’s easy to imagine that something might go wrong with the U.S. economy in the fairly near future. People are calling their financial advisors asking whether they should retreat to the safety of putting their m...

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2:06

Home Insurance Crisis

Conservatory Chat ·

2025/02/06

The catastrophic wildfires in Los Angeles represent a terrible human tragedy, and for many homeowners, it will become an awful financial tragedy too, as thousands will discover that there’s a big gap between what their homes are worth and what they’ll get from insurance companies to rebuild on top of the ash. It’s also worth noting that they’re not alone. A recent article in Bloomberg News says that an estimated 17 million U.S. homes – roughly 19% of total housing – are significantly underin...

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2:19

2024 Annual Investment Report

Conservatory Chat ·

2025/01/08

The U.S. investment scene, in aggregate, churned out another unusually positive investment experience this past year, with 20+ percent gains heaped on top of 2023's historically unusual gains.The experts who follow these matters say that ebullient investor expectations rest on the idea that artificial intelligence will improve the economy, help companies achieve unusual productivity gains, and ultimately lead to higher values across the board. This, of course, is unproven speculation, but the...

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3:01

Booming Gold

Conservatory Chat ·

2024/11/25

Legendary investor Warren Buffet, chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, was asked about investing in gold, and he was perplexed by the question. His response was that gold (unlike investments in stocks and bonds) doesn’t build value in the economy, doesn’t generate annual dividends or interest, and generally relies on finicky investor sentiment to move its price (and value) up or down. He wondered what one would do with a nest egg in gold other than admire the sheen and periodically polish it.But g...

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2:56

The Fed’s Other Lever

Conservatory Chat ·

2024/10/24

When it comes to the economy, the Fed Funds Rate is one of its most closely watched and talked about factors driving the conversation. Pundits endlessly opine, while economists pour over the tea leaves that are the Federal Reserve’s minutes and press conferences. From all this, it would be natural to assume that this is the only lever that the Fed is pulling when it wants to raise or lower the temperature of economic activity.But there is another equally important handle: the Fed balance shee...

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2:19

ROI on Infrastructure

Conservatory Chat ·

2024/10/21

We’ve been hearing about how America has underinvested in its infrastructure for decades, and how the new Infrastructure Investment & Jobs Act is supposed to turn that around. Some of us have looked with envy at the amazing rapid-rail system that connects every part of the Chinese countryside, and Los Angeles residents are (or should be) envious of New York City’s subway system. But many taxpayers might be wondering: where would that infrastructure money best be spent?According to J...

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2:59

2024 3rd Quarter Investment Report

Conservatory Chat ·

2024/10/07

The rarest of economic events is the so-called “soft landing,” where a robust economy (and long-time bullish markets) are gradually cooled without triggering a recession and bear market. We might be witnessing such a phenomenon today, though nobody will quite say we're out of the woods yet.As has been the case for most of 2024, the U.S. markets seem to be testing new highs every week or so, in a smooth ride with little volatility. That is not normal, but there aren't any clear signs of a stor...

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2:36

Childless Trends

Conservatory Chat ·

2024/09/23

Against all odds and expectations, the number of women who either choose not to have children or, for other reasons, do not, has become a major political issue. This raises the question – are more women today choosing to go childless versus their parents’ or grandparents’ generations?The answer appears to be yes. A survey found that the number of women of prime child-bearing age who were not having children rose by 4.7 million, compared with fertility patterns before the Great Recession. Goin...

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1:53

Famous Market Timers

Conservatory Chat ·

2024/09/17

Quick – name the world’s greatest market timer in all history.This is a question I often raise with investors who want to act on their impulse to get out of the market at the first sign of a hiccup or put all their money into AI stocks for fear of missing out.The typical reaction is a blank stare. Now we can debate the greatest tennis players or the pantheon of great chess players throughout history. Everybody can cite statistics about the greatest hitters in the history of Major League Baseb...

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2:39

Dollar Decline

Conservatory Chat ·

2024/09/10

Do you have any leftover euros from your last vacation in Europe? You might want to hold onto them.The U.S. dollar is declining in value compared with a basket of international currencies. The greenback has fallen 5% in the last two months and now sits at a 13-month low.Should we be alarmed? Probably not. Other nations go to economic war over trying to devalue their currencies compared with the others around the world. A strong currency means that the products of companies based in that count...

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1:58

Older Cars, Thriftier Drivers

Conservatory Chat ·

2024/08/23

There are two kinds of car owners in this world: the people who buy a new car every few years, and the people who continue driving their older cars until the transmission drops out onto the pavement. A recent study shows that a growing number of people are shifting from the former to the latter, and the trend has been going on for a while. In 1977, only 16.9% of cars on the road were at least 10 years old. Today that figure is just under 45%.What's going on? There are several factors at play....

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1:41

Debt Concerns

Conservatory Chat ·

2024/08/15

The U.S. is experiencing a new epidemic: bankruptcies. Filings are up 28% from this time last year, for a total of 45,592 over the past 12 months. Commercial Chapter 11 filings, meanwhile, increased 40% to 542 – meaning the contagion is not just confined to individuals who have maxed out their credit cards. Small businesses have seen their total filings increase by 60%.The main cause of the bankruptcy wave seems to be consumer debt, which is now above $5 trillion in total (counting credit car...

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3:04

Inherited IRA Distribution Rules

Conservatory Chat ·

2024/08/08

Yes, folks, our government just keeps making our lives simpler and simpler by the day.There was a time, back before 2020, when the rules covering people who inherited traditional IRA accounts were simple. Before the SECURE Act was passed, people could spread out their distributions from these inherited retirement accounts over their lifetime, using a simple mortality table. (No, not completely simple, but…) These were the famous “stretch” provisions, which made it possible to reduce the annua...

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3:32

Private Equity & Your Health

Conservatory Chat ·

2024/07/30

We’re starting to see private equity firms make short-term investments in companies across the business landscape. At best, they’re looking to make a quick buck; but at worst, they’re looting the companies they “invest” in and leaving others holding the bag. One recent example is the Red Lobster bankruptcy, which closed locations nationwide and laid off 36,000 workers. A private equity firm called Golden Gate Capital essentially financed a takeover by selling the real estate (formerly owned b...

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4:12

2024 2nd Quarter Investment Report

Conservatory Chat ·

2024/07/02

The markets seem to be testing new highs every week or so. But the first thing you’ll notice, if you look closely at the numbers, are the more modest returns experienced in the second quarter compared with the first. The commentators and pundits interpret that as the markets “running out of steam.” However, the early part of the year might be more accurately described as a period of over-enthusiasm, with investors worrying over the possibility of “missing out.”The chief worry as we enter the ...

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1:47

State Tax Rankings

Conservatory Chat ·

2024/06/21

Several U.S. states have become attractive destinations for retirees since they don’t charge state income taxes. Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, and Wyoming fall into this thrifty category. New Hampshire would but the state does charge a flat 4% tax on interest and dividend income.So those states are the cheapest places to live, from a tax standpoint, right? When you look at the bigger picture, there are thriftier places to live, tax-wise. Why? Because you a...

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4:23

Social Security Fixes

Conservatory Chat ·

2024/06/12

It seems like every news cycle includes an article about how the Social Security trust fund is about to run out of money. “About” may be somewhat of a misnomer. Estimates vary, and change as the economy goes through its ups and downs, but the latest estimate suggests that the trust fund will run out of money by 2035, in 11 years.That doesn’t mean that a decade or so down the road we will witness the abrupt termination of Social Security benefits for seniors who qualify. The program rece...

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