And yet, that’s the modern-day source for an approach to interpersonal interaction that extends back at least 2,500 years that seems foreign in 2026. In this edition’s Financial LIFE Planning article, I’ll share a personal story that brought this concept to life for me (just this week) and the freeing application of mudita in our financial planning.

And Tony Welch is back in the saddle this week to discuss the Fed’s interest rate hike—and what we can expect from it.

Thanks for joining us for another week!

Tim

Tim Maurer, CFP®, RLP®

Partner

SIGNATUREFD

In this Net Worthwhile® Weekly you'll find:

• Financial LIFE Planning:

  • How To Be Happy For Someone Else

• Quote O' The Week:

  • Annie Dillard

• Weekly Market Update

  • Fed Raises Rates—What To Expect?

Financial LIFE Planning

How To Be Happy For Someone Else

Georgia football’s unlikely rallying cry, an ancient word for unselfish joy, and the science of celebrating someone else’s success

My 22-year-old son, a senior at the University of Georgia, made my heart skip this past week.

As I was finishing up a meeting, he called me twice within a five-minute period, which isn’t generally college-kid code for good news—more likely its opposite. But he was on a short break from work, and he had news, indeed.

He’s finishing his exercise science degree as a Dawg, but his goal is to join the evolutionary wave within the practice of medicine that has a less reactive—and more proactive—approach, as a holistically-minded physical therapist, with a particular focus on lifelong strength and mobility. So, he’s been applying to a slate of universally competitive DPT (Doctorate of Physical Therapy) programs in the Southeast, completing extensive applications and conducting all-day in-person interviews for one of relative few spots these programs are filling for their next incoming classes in the fall of 2027.

He certainly had a favorite, and had given that school his singular “priority” tag, meaning that if they select him, he’s already committed. And less than a week after his in-person interview, he got the call from the head of the department, welcoming him to the program.

I’m not sure I’ve ever heard him sound happier, as this usually reserved kid let himself feel all the waves of satisfaction that follow those handful of moments in life where an outsized amount of effort and planning is rewarded with the hoped-for achievement.

The feelings I felt in that moment reminded me of something comedian Steve Harvey said in a deeply personal interview that has since gone viral: “Your father is the only man who wanted you to be better than him.”

Whether he knew it or not, Harvey was echoing rabbi Rav Yosei bar Honi, from about 1,500 years ago, when he wrote, “A person is jealous of everyone except for his son and his student.”

While I’ll likely spend the rest of my life and career—especially a career in finance—fighting the urge to compare and compete, from the first time my kid beat me in a foot race, to the many times he’s outshined me on the athletic field, to his exceptionalism in the classroom, losing to him has always felt like a deeply gratifying win.

Indeed, we’ve all heard that “Comparison is the thief of joy,” but what about taking it a step further—finding joy in celebrating the accomplishments of others? It’s a notion so far from our individualistic American ideal that we don’t even have an English word for it.

Unselfish Joy

For that, coincidentally, we must return to Athens—Athens, Georgia, where the Georgia Bulldogs call home—and the most unexpected application of Sanskrit philosophy I’ve ever seen, as applied by the notoriously intense Georgia football coach, Kirby Smart.

Smart was introduced to the concept by sports psychologist Drew Brannon when Brannon’s consulting firm, Amplos, was brought in to help rehabilitate the program after the disappointing 8-2 2020 season. (Disappointment is obviously gauged differently at Georgia.) Introduced at a team leaders’ retreat, the word “mudita” became a rallying cry for the program that ESPN calls “one of the most important steps in Georgia’s transformation”—and this funny word is even emblazoned on the team’s 2024 SEC championship rings.

The direct Sanskrit translation is “to rejoice, be glad,” but the common English translation is “unselfish joy.”

The German-born Buddhist monk who founded the Buddhist Publication Society, Nyanaponika Thera, acknowledges that this is next-level stuff—that it’s easier to feel compassion or friendliness “than to cherish a spontaneous feeling of shared joy.”

Yes, cut yourself some slack, because it appears that unselfish joy is not our default. In Takahashi’s “When Your Gain Is My Pain and Your Pain Is My Gain” paper in Science, they found that another person’s advantage registered in a region of the brain involved in processing pain, especially when it was something the viewer cared about. And that when the advantaged person later suffered a setback, the brain’s reward center lit up. Oh boy.

I guess this is why I wouldn’t lose an ounce of sleep if the Pittsburgh Steelers lost every football game they ever played for the remainder of their existence. But what about how we respond to someone closer to us?

Years earlier, Tesser’s Self-Evaluation Maintenance model found that we generally have one of two responses when someone close to us succeeds:

1. Reflection: If they succeed in a field that is not central to who we are, we’re capable of basking in their success.

2. Comparison: But if they succeed in our field, being close makes it worse.

But while it’s always great to know what parts of our biology and psychology our better angels might be working against, the great news is that we’re not beholden to our basest of instincts. And the upside is pretty great.

For example, in her “Will you be there for me when things go right?” study, Shelly Gable found that how partners respond to good news is more predictive of love and commitment than how they respond to bad news. A later paper by Michael Andreychik summed up the valuable conclusion in its headline: “I like that you feel my pain, but I love that you feel my joy.”

How To Train Your Brain When Hearing Good News

The bad news is that because this often runs against our instinctive nature bent towards self-preservation, it takes work. The good news, however, is that the work works.

As in many areas of behavioral science, we can actually train our brains to respond in the way we prefer—and the collective research and guidance can even be summed up in five useful suggestions to train our brains that work especially when someone is sharing good news with us:

1. Stay on their news. Even our better intentions often incline us to match our conversational partner’s story with a similar experience of our own, but this is actually hijacking the conversation.

2. Don’t be a downer. You might think you’re being helpful to point out a potential pitfall when someone shares good news with you—but you’re not. There will be a time for contingency planning, but it’s not now.

3. Be curious. Ask questions that will help them relive their experience. “When did you find out?” “What did you do first?”

4. Let it show. Let your positive response show in your face and in your voice.

5. Tie the outcome back to their effort. “Man, you really worked hard for this. You earned it!”

Yes, it’s good news that we can retrain our brains, but it’s even better news that when we master this method, it’s a) infectious, creating a virtuous cycle, and b) the benefits to this virtuous cycle can compound. As C.F. Knight said, “Unselfish joy multiplies in ratio to the extension of its application.”

Personal And Financial Applications

Aside from the ball field, there’s likely no area where the downsides of comparison are more apparent than in navigating our personal finances. For financial advisors, I’m inclined to point out that we (hopefully) get a lot of practice in being on the receiving end of good news from our clients. And yet, even in that moment, we likely feel a professional responsibility to quickly identify any imperfections to be optimized. So, for starters, I think we can (and should) do our best to apply some version of the five-fold brain training mentioned above. But I’d also encourage you to think about the fact that we have an opportunity to invite moments of positivity, too. I know some advisors who’ve actually systematized this into their regular meeting flows by starting off meetings with a simple, earnest invitation to express good news. It’s simultaneously a gift to your client and a positive frame for the rest of the meeting.

But for all of us, we can do better than to simply re-share the “comparison is the thief of joy” trope in solidarity with the collective knot in our stomachs felt when we see a friend, colleague, or family member succeed—personally, professionally, or financially. We can train our brains to truly celebrate their success, thereby loosening the knot, with greater peace and gratitude as our reward.

It might come (more) naturally to celebrate the success of our children, but mudita is a practice, both ancient and modern, that is universally applicable and serves to deepen our relationships while releasing our grip on the scores and spreadsheets we too often use to measure our worth, financial and otherwise.

Quote O' The Week

Another American writing legend passed away recently. Annie Dillard died on September 15, 2026, at the age of 81. She won the Pulitzer Prize in 1975 for the book, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, a Thoreau-esque survey of living a year in Virginia’s Blue Ridge with close attention to the natural world.

She taught writing for more than 20 years at Wesleyan University and received the National Humanities Medal in 2014.

Weekly Market Update

Only one color describes all the indices we track over the past week. (Red.):

• - 0.08% .SPX (500 U.S. large companies)

• - 1.52% IWD (U.S. large value companies)

• - 1.66% IWM (U.S. small companies)

• - 1.87% IWN (U.S. small value companies)

• - 1.80% EFV (International value companies)

• - 1.10% SCZ (International small companies)

• - 0.28% VGIT (U.S. intermediate-term Treasury bonds

Fed Raises Rates—What To Expect?

Contributed by Tony Welch, CFA®, CFP®, Chief Investment Officer, SignatureFD

The 10-year Treasury yield topped 4.9% on Thursday, reaching the highest level since November 2023. It’s probably easy to assume that the bond market has an inflation problem. Economic data this week didn’t help the narrative, as oil topped $100 a barrel and wholesale inflation was up 5.4% year over year. However, other data says otherwise.

Nominal Treasury yields are the sum of two things: the real yield, the compensation an investor demands above the inflation rate, and the breakeven rate, which is what the market believes inflation will be over the life of the bond. By looking at them separately, we can learn what’s driving the move in Treasury rates.

10-year breakevens sit at 2.40% as of Thursday and, for the most part, have been range-bound over the past two decades between 1.5% and 2.5%. The real yield sits just shy of 2.50% as of Thursday, the highest level in the last 15 years. Investors aren’t asking to be compensated for inflation. They are asking to be paid more to lend for ten years.

It’s been driven by a large supply of Treasuries and record corporate issuance, rather than rising prices. A real yield of 2.5% changes the math on all other investments because it raises the bogey for all other risk assets.

Chart O’ The Week

The Fed’s widely anticipated hike came about due to stubborn inflation and solid economic growth. Chair Warsh expressed that underlying inflation trends had not yet meaningfully improved and that financial conditions were not restrictive. We caught a glimpse of the economic momentum in last week’s retail sales report, which showed a 1.2% jump in August. The strong retail report has funneled through to the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow calculation, which jumped to 5.1% for Q3 growth. While we expect economic growth is not likely to come in as strong as that estimate, it is clear that there has been some recent economic momentum.

Supporting the spending trend has been a strong wealth effect. Stocks are up and bonds are kicking off more yield. Wages haven’t kept up with inflation, so we believe it is likely that the wealth effect is doing a lot of the heavy lifting in supporting the consumption cycle. That does create a risk to consumer spending if stocks were to experience a sustained correction. But for now, the asset markets have been supportive for economic growth.

We continue to expect elevated volatility in the weeks ahead, but suspect it will be contained to a correction and not give way to a bear market. Historically, stocks have corrected in the late Summer/Fall period of mid-term election years. The good news is that the S&P 500 has never been down in the 12 months following mid-term elections. In fact, it has been the strongest 12-month stretch within a four-year presidential cycle.

For now, we continue to give the bull market the benefit of the doubt, supported by an ongoing economic expansion and strong corporate earnings growth. If inflation remains stubborn and the Fed has to hike rates at a quicker pace, that could see us change our assessment. But for now, we believe the weight of the evidence remains broadly positive.

Broadly positive—just like your weekend, I hope!

Tim

At first, the outpouring was a pleasant surprise, but as I saw the tributes mount, and the myriad of aspirational notes that he had materially changed so many lives, I went from feeling inspired to lend my voice to the chorus to feeling a little dejected. You see, despite having long listed Berry as one of the most influential authors to me, personally, I realized that his words had impacted my thoughts far more than my actions.

Therefore, this week’s Financial LIFE Planning post is really less of a tribute and more of a confession. But, whether you’re a Berry fan or fraud or you’ve just read his name for the first time, I hope you’ll find something of value in these reflections—or more likely, through his own words.

Tim

Tim Maurer, CFP®, RLP®

Partner

SIGNATUREFD

In this Net Worthwhile® Weekly you'll find:

• Financial LIFE Planning:

  • I Wish I Was More Like Wendell Berry—But I’m Not

• Quote O' The Week:

  • Barbara Kingsolver

• Weekly Market Update

  • Don’t Blame Inflation

Financial LIFE Planning

I Wish I Was More Like Wendell Berry—But I’m Not

The Late Author, Poet, And Farmer Was Ahead Of His Time By Staying Well Behind It

I wish I was more like Wendell Berry, but I’m not.

Despite having come to feel a new satisfaction from the ordering of words thanks to reading his work, and despite being drawn into fiction for the first time in decades when I discovered his, and despite being moved toward most of his philosophies expressed in prose, and despite desiring to be seen as someone who’d be inclined to be drawn to his philosophies, I really don’t live the way that Wendell Berry did.

For example…

He was a truly prolific author, writing more than 50 books, whose talents transcended a single genre, including more than 25 books of poetry, 16 essay collections, 8 novels, and 42 short stories set in the fictional town of Port William. Berry was a Stegner Fellow at Stanford (in the same group as Ken Kesey), a Guggenheim Fellowship recipient (1961-62), a winner of the National Humanities Medal (2011), deliverer of the Jefferson Lecture (2012), and a National Book Critics Circle lifetime achievement award winner (2016).

Here are a couple of sentences from Berry’s Port William novel, my personal favorite, Jayber Crow, as Jayber considers the cause and effect of change in life:

Some of the changes in my life were imposed, and some were chosen—if by “chosen” I may mean that I chose what I seemed already to have been chosen by, desire having obscured the alternatives. And each change has been a birth, each having taken me to a new life from which I could not go back.

I—well, if I ever wrote a single sentence that bested his worst, I’d consider it a lifetime achievement.

He went back home. After time at Stanford and in Florence, Berry taught at NYU from 1962 to 1964, and then, despite the literary world’s insistence that it would ruin his career, he gave up the elite academic route to go back to rural Kentucky. He’d already married his college sweetheart, Tanya Amyx, in 1957, and they bought land near where Berry grew up, where they lived and worked the farm for more than 60 years. (Incidentally, his relationship with Tanya is likely worthy of a post, if not a book, all its own, as she survives him as his companion and partner of more than 69 years, in life and work. She edited and transcribed all of his writing, and YES! Magazine called her “the most important fiction editor almost no one has heard of.”)

Berry explores the theme in his poem, “Traveling at Home”:

Even in a country you know by heart

it’s hard to go the same way twice.

The life of the going changes.

The chances change and make a new way.

Any tree or stone or bird

can be the bud of a new direction. The

natural correction is to make intent

of accident. To get back before dark

is the art of going.

I grew up personally and professionally in my beloved Baltimore—but I also spent a dozen years in Charleston, SC and now a few in Atlanta, so I haven’t gone home. Yet.

He was a farmer who was connected to the land and for whom the idea of local interdependence—where neighbors and town form a local economy Berry called the “membership”—was predominant. And he was an old-school farmer, an anti-industrialist, with more than 100 hillside acres of tobacco, cattle, and sheep, for which he used draft horses instead of tractors, crop rotation, manure for fertilizer, and solar panels for energy.

While Berry had much to say about the dangers of industrialized farming, I’m choosing a quote here from one of his short stories contained in The Wild Birds, as spoken by fictional farmer Burley Coulter. Here, we get more of the why behind Berry’s membership ethos:

“The way we are, we are members of each other. All of us. Everything. The difference ain’t in who is a member and who is not, but in who knows it and who don’t.”

I’m all about having a majority of my diet populated by organic whole foods, but I don’t even cut my own grass.

He was pro-tangible and anti-digital, and not in the Substack way where we decry technology with technology. Berry wrote everything in pencil. Tanya typed everything on the Royal typewriter that they’d owned since 1956, while editing. He had no computer. His 1987 essay, “Why I Am Not Going to Buy a Computer,” reprinted in Harper’s, drew one of the biggest backlashes they’d seen. And he didn’t own a television.

And it’s to that essay that we turn for reasoning articulated directly by Berry with simple logic that is hard to argue:

My final and perhaps my best reason for not owning a computer is that I do not wish to fool myself. I disbelieve, and therefore strongly resent, the assertion that I or anybody else could write better or more easily with a computer than with a pencil. I do not see why I should not be as scientific about this as the next fellow: when somebody has used a computer to write work that is demonstrably better than Dante’s, and when this better is demonstrably attributable to the use of a computer, then I will speak of computers with a more respectful tone of voice, though I still will not buy one.

I might say I wished I could live in a screen less world with, but I’ve not deemed it possible. Sure, I’ve got a Brick to make my smartphone dumber at the times of my choosing; my wife and I are flirting with the possibility of no-phone Sundays; I only read tangible books (unless I’m listening); and I’m a sucker for handwritten notes. But at last count, I pay for five different streaming entertainment platforms and I’m pretty sure I could watch my three favorite movies (each three hours long) back-to-back-to-back with just a couple of bathroom and popcorn breaks.

Now, the point of this isn’t to beat myself up or implicitly suggest you should, but to bring to light the thing about Berry that may actually be the most inspiring.

Beliefs —> Words —> Actions

The AP calls Berry one of the most prominent authors never to win a Pulitzer or National Book Award, and perhaps that’s fitting, because it seems his body of work extends far beyond his works. Berry’s known for his writing, but I believe he’s admired by many and respected by most, whether they agree with him or not, for the stunning consistency between his beliefs and his words, and even more so between his words and his actions.

So, perhaps the question isn’t “How do I replicate Wendell Berry’s life?” But instead, “How do I apply the truth I find in Berry’s work that inspires me to live my own best life?” He offers a response himself in “Quantity vs. Form,” an essay that appeared in The Way of Ignorance: And Other Essays:

What is or what should be the goal of our life and work? This is a fearful question and it ought to be fearfully answered. Probably it should not be answered for anybody in particular by anybody else in particular. But the ancient norm or ideal seems to have been a life in which you perceived your calling, faithfully followed it, and did your work with satisfaction; married, made a home, and raised a family; associated generously with neighbors; ate and drank with pleasure the produce of your local landscape; grew old seeing yourself replaced by your children or younger neighbors, but continuing in old age to be useful; and finally died a good or a holy death surrounded by loved ones.

I think it’s important to note the disclaimer offered before Berry’s observation of a fulfilling life, that it probably shouldn’t “…be answered for anybody in particular by anybody else in particular.” But just about everything else that follows resounds with me.

And if nothing else, this, I believe, is actually one of the primary differences between good financial planning and great financial LIFE planning—that we must first articulate what the ideal is before we can productively move towards it.

So, I’m curious, where does Berry’s ideal help you articulate your own purpose, and where does it deviate? Or maybe you just start from scratch to articulate your ideal—your statement of purpose or, as we say here, Net Worthwhile?

Then, you can develop a plan for how to get there through action—through whatever calling you’ve pursued (and where), with whatever tools (virtual or real) will help get you there, and with whom you’d like to enjoy this existence.

In a lot of ways, I might not be like Wendell Berry in precisely how I live life, but I can allow his words to permeate my perception enough to inform how I might do so better.

And then I can actually do it.

Quote O' The Week

Unlike her mentor, Wendell Berry, Barbara Kingsolver has won a Pulitzer, for her novel Demon Copperhead, which I could not more highly recommend, incidentally. At Berry’s passing, she called him “the mentor who surely meant more to me than any other.” And she’s walked the talk, too, as a farmer herself in rural Virginia whose family went an entire year only eating locally.

But beyond her Berry connection, Kingsolver certainly stands alone. Originally trained as a biologist, she got her National Humanities Medal in 2000 (a decade before Berry got his), and she’s the very first to win the Women’s Prize for Fiction twice. Our quote for this week comes from her 1990 novel, Animal Dreams, and a letter written by the character Hallie to her sister, Codi.

Weekly Market Update

Small caps led the way down for all of the indices we track this week:

• - 0.08% .SPX (500 U.S. large companies)

• - 0.80% IWD (U.S. large value companies)

• - 2.41% IWM (U.S. small companies)

• - 2.19% IWN (U.S. small value companies)

• - 0.79% EFV (International value companies)

• - 1.69% SCZ (International small companies)

• - 1.02% VGIT (U.S. intermediate-term Treasury bonds

Don’t Blame Inflation

Contributed by Nick Amat, CFA®, CFP®, CAIA, Senior Portfolio Designer, SignatureFD

The 10-year Treasury yield topped 4.9% on Thursday, reaching the highest level since November 2023. It’s probably easy to assume that the bond market has an inflation problem. Economic data this week didn’t help the narrative, as oil topped $100 a barrel and wholesale inflation was up 5.4% year over year. However, other data says otherwise.

Nominal Treasury yields are the sum of two things: the real yield, the compensation an investor demands above the inflation rate, and the breakeven rate, which is what the market believes inflation will be over the life of the bond. By looking at them separately, we can learn what’s driving the move in Treasury rates.

10-year breakevens sit at 2.40% as of Thursday and, for the most part, have been range-bound over the past two decades between 1.5% and 2.5%. The real yield sits just shy of 2.50% as of Thursday, the highest level in the last 15 years. Investors aren’t asking to be compensated for inflation. They are asking to be paid more to lend for ten years.

It’s been driven by a large supply of Treasuries and record corporate issuance, rather than rising prices. A real yield of 2.5% changes the math on all other investments because it raises the bogey for all other risk assets.

Chart O’ The Week

Despite the short trading week, the data kept us busy. Last week, geopolitics dominated headlines. This week it was all about interest rates. The short end of the curve responded to both wholesale and consumer inflation data, pushing the probability of a 0.25% rate hike up sharply by Friday morning. Long-term yields moved higher on supply pressure. Equities responded by selling off for four straight sessions heading into Friday.

The macro and monetary indicators did most of the work this week, and the direction was consistent. Tuesday opened with a roughly 60% probability of a quarter-point rate hike. By Thursday’s close, it had climbed above 70%. Wholesale inflation came in hotter than expected, with headline PPI up 5.4% year-over-year against 5.3% expected. Oil continued to rally, topping $100 a barrel and strengthening the inflation narrative. Supply pressures in the bond market pushed long-term yields higher, taking the 10-year Treasury above 4.9% on Thursday. Friday brought August CPI, the last data point the FOMC will see before its rate decision on September 16. Headline inflation rose 0.4% from the prior month and 3.4% year-over-year, both in line with consensus. Core inflation is where things got interesting. It rose 0.3% against the expectation of 0.2%, even as the annual core rate eased to 2.4%. Following the print, the 10-year held above 4.9% and the probability of a rate hike climbed to 85%.

Despite continued pressure in the bond market, market fundamentals remain strong. As we stated last week, S&P 500 profits have now grown for 12 consecutive quarters. Analysts expect that trend to continue, with Q3 S&P 500 earnings projected to grow 28.5% year-on-year. The more telling statistic is the direction of earnings revisions. Analysts expected 26.6% growth at the end of June, a 1.9 percentage point revision higher. Estimates are typically trimmed as quarters progress. This time around, they have been raised. Should that come to fruition, it would mark the third straight quarter of earnings growth over 25%. Corporate guidance has mirrored analyst sentiment, with 63% of S&P 500 companies issuing positive EPS guidance. This is well above the 41% five-year average. Valuations continue to look slightly elevated compared to historical levels. This week’s pullback helped that slightly, but with a risk-free rate where it is, richer valuations have less wiggle room should they disappoint.

Market trend has begun to decline as volatility has caused major indices to swing. The S&P 500 is roughly 3% below its August record highs and has fallen for four consecutive sessions, its longest losing streak since early March. Weakness has continued to be concentrated in the more rate-sensitive corners of the market. The Russell 2000, a US small-cap index, was the worst-performing major index three days running as of the close of business Thursday. We saw breadth deteriorate as well, with the percentage of S&P 500 stocks trading above their 50-day moving average falling to around 40% from above 70% in mid-August. While this appears relatively negative, we believe it’s important to provide some context. Wednesday was only the third session in 2026 in which more than 60% of the stocks in the S&P 500 declined, the fewest such days since 2010. This is deterioration from an unusually strong starting point rather than a complete breakdown. However, it’s worth watching as we head into Wednesday’s Fed decision.

The market this year has been fueled by strong fundamentals, and that story hasn’t changed. The pressure we’ve experienced this week has come from the cost of money, not the underlying economy. Now that the latest pre-meeting data is in, the market is turning its attention to the Fed rate decision on Wednesday.

With the passing of the 25th anniversary of 9/11 this week, I’m reminded of the relative unimportance of…so much, really, that tends to draw our attention. Of course, all of us of a certain age remember precisely where we were when the towers were hit, followed by the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field, but my thoughts are especially with those of you who suffered irretrievable loss, in addition to the fear and confusion we all shared.

Wishing all of you and yours a weekend of focus on the stuff that’s most important to you.

Tim

This week, we jump into how we can do that—how we can use our money as an amplifier for the instrument that is our presence in the world, personally and professionally.

Thanks for joining us this long Labor Day weekend, and I hope you don’t set an alarm clock tomorrow!

Tim

Tim Maurer, CFP®, RLP®

Partner

SIGNATUREFD

In this Net Worthwhile® Weekly you'll find:

• Financial LIFE Planning:

  • The Influence Amplifier

• Quote O' The Week:

  • Wendell Berry

• Weekly Market Update

  • Higher Bond Yields are Offsetting Price Movement

Financial LIFE Planning

Concern, Influence, Control (Part 2): The Influence Amplifier

How money magnifies our influence—and why that may be a responsibility before it’s a reward

My son, a junior at Clemson University—Go Tigers—is an avid guitar player. He spends hours a day on his instrument, or instruments, really. Indeed, all of his prized possessions in life are guitars. Electric guitars.

Each one is a beautiful creation of its own—two different Les Pauls, a Stratocaster, Telecaster, Jazzmaster, MS450. But what’s interesting about them is that by themselves, they can hardly produce a sound. Barely audible plinking. They each have to be plugged into an amplifier to do anything. And when they are plugged into an amplifier, they come alive. Loudly.

What’s of further interest to me is that good electric guitar players, perhaps unlike most other instrumentalists, become not only masters of their instrument—but also of their amplifiers. He will literally spend months dialing in the perfect sound that he seeks to gain from the respective instrument, each of which has a sound that manifests differently, depending on the amplifier and its unique settings.

In last week’s post—Part 1 (of 2)—we went all the way down the historical, philosophical, and spiritual rabbit hole of the popularized notion that we should focus more on what we can control in life and less on what we can’t. We examined this through a three-fold lens with three concentric circles that invite us to acknowledge that most of us have a range of concerns in life that is much larger than our “circle of influence,” the stuff we can actually do something about. And that within our circle of indirect influence nests one additional sphere—the very limited domain over which we have direct control.

The post concluded with an interesting, if not complexifying, twist from Stephen Covey, where he suggested that our circle of influence in this life is far from static, and that it can be grown through “position, wealth, role, or relationships”—for better and for worse.

So this week, I’d like to suggest that we are each a beautiful creation, a hand-crafted instrument, and that these tools—position, wealth, role, and relationships—are our amplifiers. We’ll focus especially, and very practically, on the wealth piece.

Of course, in our broader definition of wealth—our time, influence, money, energy, and relationships—it pretty much encompasses all of Covey’s named amplifiers, but let’s take a specific look at our money management, as that is the ever-present amplifier that is connected, in one way or the other, to just about every decision we make in life.

The Money Map

Let’s start by ordering a host of financial factors into the three categories we’ve established:

You immediately get the picture, right? But here’s the really wild thing to me:

The financial industry markets almost exclusively on the Concerns—the fears, the manic, the sensationalistic headlines. The uncontrollable. (And yes, they know exactly what they’re doing.)

Jumping to that which we can actually Control, it’s the boring stuff, the mundane. It’s patience, discipline, and box-checking.

Meanwhile, it’s often the middle Influence ring that actually drives us the craziest. These areas that we can move but not command often generate both paralysis and delusion, because we can tell ourselves that we should have done more (or less) to achieve a desired outcome and because we often don’t know when divinity, serendipity, happenstance, or just plain dumb luck has influenced an outcome—often in a material way.

The practical takeaway? I believe the Control group is the vast majority of good financial planning, and it’s also not a stretch to suggest that the most predictable financial success stories will be grounded in this category. In other words, for the vast majority, your savings rate and your portfolio allocation will be the greatest indicator of a successful retirement savings plan—not individual security selection.

In Covey’s own parlance, I suggest that this Control group in financial planning is the “first things first.”

And yet.

If that’s the majority of good financial planning, I remain convinced that the great planning I’ve seen has delved, often deeply, into the Influence domain. Though less tangible, it is often career shaping and planning, income unlocks, dedicated health initiatives, and considering how and when we will shape the next generation that takes planning to the proverbial next level. It’s certainly some of the work I’ve enjoyed the most, both as an advisor and an advisor coach.

Returning to the musical metaphor, on a good day, my son can play an admirable version of the legendary Cliffs of Dover, originally performed by guitar virtuoso Eric Johnson, but he didn’t start there, but with hundreds and hundreds of rudiments, scales, and foundational practice, without which there’d be no hope to wail.

And regarding our posture toward the Concerns, it must be said that the true goal here may not be simply to ignore them. They are, after all, important, and understanding them can helpfully inform how we act. For example, you can’t refinance your mortgage to a lower rate, directly controlling your cost of housing, if you don’t know what rates are. You don’t know to update your estate planning documents if you’re unaware that the tax laws have changed. The objective, I submit, is to be aware of them without ruminating on them.

Can I give you an example that I’ve applied in my own life? I think it’s important to be informed, but I think that a constant feed of news is nothing short of toxic, at least for me. So, instead of listening to or watching or scrolling through the never-ending news cycle every day, I get one physical weekend newspaper edition delivered to my house every Saturday morning. Over the weekend, I’ll scan the headlines and read the articles that I think are important. But on any given Tuesday, I likely won’t be able to tell you what the Dow did or what new terror has been unleashed in the Middle East.

So, what’s of your three circles, and how do you manage them? If you’re not sure, Covey gives us some additional instruction, and again, it has meaningful implications and application directly in our wealth management:

The Haves And The Bes

One way to determine which circle our concern is in is to distinguish between the have’s and the be’s. The Circle of Concern is filled with the have’s.

“I’ll be happy when I have my house paid off.”

“If only I had a boss who wasn’t such a dictator…”

“If only I had a more patient husband…”

“If I had more obedient kids…”

“If I had my degree…”

“If I could just have more time to myself…”

The Circle of Influence is filled with the be’s—I can be more patient, be wise, be loving. It’s the character focus.”

Brilliant. And he takes it one step further, suggesting that “Anytime we think the problem is ‘out there,’ that thought is the problem. We empower what’s out there to control us.”

He calls it the “outside-in” paradigm, where “what’s out there has to change before we can change,” recommending instead that “the proactive approach is to change from the inside-out: to be different, and by being different, to effect positive change in what’s out there.”

Let’s rest in that truth for a beat and consider how that shift in focus could impact our finances, our relationships, our health, our lives.

The Warning

Lastly, I think we need the reminder that Covey gives us of the danger of wealth in expanding our influence that I glossed over last week:

He said, “Because of position, wealth, role, or relationships, there are some circumstances in which a person’s Circle of Influence is larger than his or her Circle of Concern,” suggesting that this situation actually reflects “…a self-inflicted emotional myopia—another reactive selfish life-style focused in the Circle of Concern.”

Simply put, financial success has a way of fooling us into thinking that we’re better. But we’re not, and that’s where one other famous saying popularized by JFK, echoed by Covey, Frankl, Oldfather, Epictetus, and enshrined in the NIV translation of Luke 12:48 in the New Testament of the Bible deserves, I believe, the last word:

“From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.”

And not because we have to, but because we get to.

Quote O' The Week

The most well-loved author that you may not have read, Wendell Berry, died August 31st in Port Royal, Kentucky, at the age of 92. Berry has already inspired next week’s post, so you’ll hear more from him then, but in addition to the luminaries cited in our short concern/control series, Berry, too, had something to say about it.

In a 1984 essay called “Two Economies,” Berry referenced two different economies—the “Great Economy,” the whole order of things (and not just financially), nearly all of which we did not create and cannot control. Nested inside of the Great Economy is ours, the “little economy,” the human economy, the industrial economy, and he warns “…that it tends to destroy what it does not comprehend, and that it is dependent upon much that it does not comprehend."

If you’re new to Berry and have seen his name a bunch this week following his passing, might I recommend one of his novels, actually—Jayber Crow, one of the handful of fictional volumes that shows up on my 40 Books That Changed My Life. But here’s a taste of his non-fiction prose that speaks to our post this week.

Weekly Market Update

Moderately mixed markets for this first weekly peek into the month of September:

• + 0.09% .SPX (500 U.S. large companies)

• - 0.27% IWD (U.S. large value companies)

• + 0.09% IWM (U.S. small companies)

• + 0.66% IWN (U.S. small value companies)

• + 1.49% EFV (International value companies)

• + 0.69% SCZ (International small companies)

• - 0.53% VGIT (U.S. intermediate-term Treasury bonds

Higher Bond Yields are Offsetting Price Movement

Contributed by Nick Amat, CFA®, CFP®, CAIA, Senior Portfolio Designer, SignatureFD

Interest rates have been the “talk of the town” for the past few years and have played a major role in the returns bond investors have seen. The key point here is that interest rates cut both ways for bonds. Interest rates have an inverse relationship with bond prices, so when rates go up, bond prices go down. On the flipside, higher interest rates result in higher income for investors.

Bonds recovered nicely last year as a result of modest interest rate declines, shown below in dark blue, and attractive coupons, shown in grey. Bond spreads, shown in light blue, remained tight and had little influence on returns.

The story this year has shifted. Longer-term rates have been volatile, despite the Fed holding rates steady. That’s because intermediate bonds price on intermediate to long-term interest rates, not the policy rate. Longer-term bond yields have moved higher. That’s the roughly -1.6% drag from Treasury yields (dark blue) within this year’s total return.

However, investors are still receiving higher coupons. Coupons have done the heavy lifting for bonds this year. Even with the U.S. Aggregate index, our core bond benchmark, up modestly this year, higher coupons have allowed bonds to keep their head above water. Bond prices will fluctuate over time as the current rate environment changes, but your coupon is fixed.

Chart o’ the Week

The narrative this week shifted away from the bond market as geopolitical tensions moved back into the driver’s seat. The week began with the U.S. executing missile strikes on Iran. Iran retaliated by attacking U.S. assets in the region. Oil prices spiked. The fear is that the renewed conflict will delay a resolution and continue to push inflation higher and global interest rates along with it. The market continues to balance rising rates, yo-yoing oil prices, all while equities sit near all-time highs.

The macro and monetary indicators were the busiest this week. The main story came mid-week as the probability of a rate hike at the September FOMC meeting jumped significantly to about 65% from around 35% the week before. As a result, the 10-year Treasury touched 4.82% on Wednesday, the highest level since November 2023. On Thursday, Fed Governor Waller made comments about supporting a hold if inflation moderated. This sent the probability of a rate hike down to about 50% in September, and the 10-year dipped to 4.77%. Friday brought strong payroll data, which moved the probability of a rate hike up over 50%, accounting for the third move this week. This emphasizes the fragility of the situation and how quickly it can change from day to day. August CPI will be released prior to the FOMC meeting in September which we expect will play a key role in how the committee moves forward.

Market fundamentals remain the strongest indicator. S&P 500 profits have grown for 12 consecutive quarters now. Q2 earnings this year were up about 40%, and revenue growth was steady at 14%. The remarkable number is that 84% of companies beat earnings expectations in Q2. Looking ahead to Q3, analysts expect another strong quarter, with earnings expected to rise 22.3%. However, valuations are beginning to show signs of strain. Forward P/E now sits at 19.6, slightly higher than the 10-year average of 19.0, indicating valuations are beginning to look a bit rich.

Trend remains strong, with markets sitting near all-time highs. However, market concentration has begun to rear its nasty head again. Schwab reported that Nvidia and Micron alone accounted for roughly one-third of the market’s 2026 profit growth, and the 10 largest contributors explained about two-thirds. The strength we are seeing in the market is real but narrower than what we might see in the headlines. The percentage of S&P 500 stocks trading above their 50-day moving average fell below 50% this week after topping 70% in mid-August. Breadth isn’t completely breaking down, but the areas that have detracted are more interest-rate-sensitive sectors.

The market has navigated several disruptions this year, whether it’s tariffs, war, or inflation. A firm labor market and strong corporate earnings have allowed it to remain resilient. We expect that resilience will be tested again when the FOMC meets at the September meeting.

OK now, this long weekend isn’t going to enjoy itself. So, get after it!

Tim

But it’s even older than I thought. Ancient, actually.

So when I saw a helpful, simple exercise featured on the #1 health and fitness podcast in the U.S. (Huberman Lab), I knew I wanted to share it with you. Then I went hunting for its origin—and kept going, back through thousands of years of philosophy. And the financial LIFE planning implications are significant.

Rather than cutting right to the chase, I decided to share what I learned through that research, because I believe this concept deserves so much more than placement on a cheesy motivational poster. Which is why this is the first of a two-part series on framing what we control inside what we influence inside what concerns us.

Thanks, as always, for joining me this Sunday morning!

Tim

Tim Maurer, CFP®, RLP®

Partner

SIGNATUREFD

In this Net Worthwhile® Weekly you'll find:

• Financial LIFE Planning:

  • Concern, Influence, Control (Part 1): Nothing New Under The Sun

• Quote O' The Week:

  • Flannery O’Connor

Financial LIFE Planning

Concern, Influence, Control (Part 1): Nothing New Under The Sun

From Huberman to Solomon—and the three circles your money fuels

Former Navy SEAL, Andy Stumpf, was recently on Dr. Andrew Huberman’s podcast, and they were commiserating on a practice that both of them do routinely, designed to help them maximize their individual agency in a world of distraction.

Stumpf said that despite its utility, he couldn’t remember where it came from. Interestingly, the person who is likely most known for its popularization, and almost certainly Stumpf’s original inspiration, Stephen Covey, has also struggled a bit with the concept’s true source. He thought it was psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor, Viktor Frankl, but there’s no direct source for Covey’s paraphrase.

And even if it was Frankl, which I kinda hope it was, he likely learned it from Oldfather in the late 1920s, and he definitely got it from Epictetus in 125 AD, who was almost certainly influenced by his mentor, both of whom arrived at something “the Teacher,” AKA King Solomon, had already said a long, long time before.

So what the heck are all these wise and learned sources talking about? Let’s go down the rabbit hole in reverse order, and then emerge from philosophy to a hyper-practical strategy that we can apply in life, and also very directly in our financial planning today.

Stumpf’s Monthly Practice (From Stephen Covey)

It’s hard to argue with Andy Stumpf’s discipline, in part because, for him, it was a matter of life and death, over hundreds of missions through 10 deployments during 17 years as a Navy SEAL. But he acknowledges that any number of cares and concerns will still render him wide-eyed, staring at the ceiling in the middle of the night.

His practice, therefore, is based on a concept popularized by Stephen Covey, describing The Circle of Concern and The Circle of Influence:

The Circle of Concern

Covey initially shared this observation in the 1980s. Before cellphones, social media, and the dreaded algorithm that amplifies all the rest. Do you think the circle’s gotten bigger? Andy Stumpf addresses that for us in a moment, but let’s allow Covey to define the other circle first:

The Circle of Influence

Our Circle of Influence is nested within our Circle of Concern, and Stumpf gives us a powerful visual to imagine the scope of each:

“So if it was the size of this table, that would be your concern. The influence would be the size of a pin drop on the table.”

Is that why it feels like we’re fighting such an uphill battle so many days? Why we’re not accomplishing more of what we know is important?

Huberman and Stumpf both employ the following super simple practice, weekly and monthly, respectively:

Stumpf notes that the stuff that has a tendency to keep him up at night is almost exclusively in the left-hand column.

The Best Quote Nobody Said

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response,” is the Viktor Frankl quote that has inspired millions, likely through Covey—except that there’s no evidence Frankl ever said it. Covey says he saw it in a library book in Hawaii while on sabbatical in 1969, but nobody can find the darn thing.

Said or not, it’s a quote that is entirely in line with Frankl’s logotherapy ethos, so let’s just give it to him. And where’d he get it? This might be a long shot, but perhaps William Abbott Oldfather, a character that seems worthy of his colorful name. An apparent descendant of Daniel Boone (on his mother’s side), he was born in Persia in 1880 to Presbyterian missionaries.

From Oldfather To Epictetus To Ecclesiastes

Oldfather was a classics professor at Illinois with degrees from Hanover College, Harvard, and the University of Munich, whose colleagues described him as “adventurous, opinionated, passionate, and driven,” with “penetrating eyes, a swinging stride,” and “a growling laugh.”

Don’t you wish you could have a cup of coffee with this dude? Alas, his writing will have to suffice, and he has something to say about the concern/control conundrum. He refers to the circle of concern 64 years before Covey as “…an external impression…a ‘constant,’ beyond our power to alter. But we remain free in regard to our attitude towards them.”

We remain free in regard to our attitude towards them. [Long exhale.]

And where’d he get this? Epictetus, from 125 AD, as translated by Oldfather in Encheiridion:

“Some things are under our control, while others are not under our control. Under our control are conception, choice, desire, aversion, and in a word, everything that is our own doing; not under our control are our body, our property, reputation, office, and in a word, everything that is not our own doing.”

Funnier yet is that Oldfather calls out Epictetus for his unoriginality of thought, suggesting, “…there can be no doubt but the system of thought in the pupil is little more than an echo, with changes of emphasis due to the personal equation, of that of the master.”

The master he was referring to was Musonius Rufus, under whom Epictetus began studying while he was still enslaved. And perhaps both Rufus and Epictetus would just point back to the writer of Ecclesiastes who, thousands of years before 2026, was already exasperated with the inherent unoriginality of life:

“What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which one can say, ‘Look! This is something new’? It was here already, long ago; it was here before our time.”

Irony of ironies? The above has long been attributed to King Solomon by generations of Sunday School teachers, including mine, despite the fact that the preponderance of scholars suggest it may have been someone else, centuries later.

Putting It All Together

As we emerge from that deep dive, let’s put it together, shall we, because I think we can create a version of this whole thing that, while not necessarily original, may be the most applicable.

I propose that the best practical mental model may not be two columns on a piece of paper or two competing circles, but three concentric circles. Let’s try this out:

While I’d agree with Stumpf that if this could be rendered with proportionate precision, we’d need to blow out the circle of concern, I think it’s helpful to see that there are still further degrees of influence. Covey references that over which we have direct control (problems involving our own behavior), indirect control (problems involving other people’s behavior), and those over which we have no control at all (which is most of them). Or, we could just add a circle of control inside of influence inside of concerns, and call it a day.

This nicely seems to aggregate the best of observations from all the brilliant folks above. But Covey does take one concept to a new level that is both empowering and concerning: He suggests that there are instances where our presupposition regarding the outsized nature of our concerns relative to our influence can invert:

“Because of position, wealth, role, or relationships, there are some circumstances in which a person’s Circle of Influence is larger than his or her Circle of Concern.”

But he’s not saying this is a good thing. He suggests it’s just a different version of “…a self-inflicted emotional myopia—another reactive selfish life-style focused in the Circle of Concern.” Woah!

The ideal, he suggests, is that we do, indeed, work on expanding our influence positively in the world, and that “…proactive people have a Circle of Concern that is at least as big as their Circle of Influence.”

So, is he suggesting that we actually expand our circle of concern as our influence grows—that we should care more, or about more? Interesting.

And what does he suggest as one of the key amplifiers of influence—for better and for worse? Our wealth.

And that, my friends, is where we’ll pick up next week, in Part 2 of this two-part post. We’ll put this more nuanced angle of the concern / influence / control interplay under the magnifying glass before looking clearly at our wealth and financial planning.

Quote O' The Week

Flannery O'Connor (1925–1964) published two novels and thirty-one short stories before dying at age thirty-nine. Her posthumous Complete Stories won the National Book Award in 1972. She lost her father to lupus when she was fifteen, and was diagnosed with the same disease at twenty-five, three years after leaving the Iowa Writers' Workshop. From 1951 until her death she lived at Andalusia, her family's dairy farm outside Milledgeville, Georgia—largely on crutches, writing a few hours each morning, raising peafowl. The line above comes from her letters, collected in The Habit of Being (1979). She was describing exactly that life, and, without meaning to, all three circles.

I hope this three-circle concept sticks with you (in the best way possible) over the weekend. I’d love to hear how it strikes you, and we’ll pick the conversation back up again next week!

Tim

Like many of the topics we discuss in the Net Worthwhile weekly, this one is much easier said than done—but the stakes are high, because there’s never been more noise to crowd out the signals that become the catalysts for transformation in our lives, work, and financial planning.

And the story that launches us into the topic couldn’t involve stakes that are any higher.

Tim

Tim Maurer, CFP®, RLP®

Partner

SIGNATUREFD

In this Net Worthwhile® Weekly you'll find:

• Financial LIFE Planning:

  • Finding A Signal Amidst The Noise

• Quote O' The Week:

  • Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

• Weekly Market Update:

  • Leading Economic Indicators Showing Positive Momentum (Finally)

Financial LIFE Planning

Finding A Signal Amidst The Noise

The signals that matter most in your life, work, and money are often quiet.

On December 29th of 1972, Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 was nearing its destination—Miami—after its departure from JFK Airport in New York. On approach to Miami, the green nose-gear indicator light didn’t come on to signal that the landing gear was properly deployed. The captain informed the Miami tower that “…it looks like we’re gonna have to circle, we don’t have a light on our nose gear yet,” so they cut off the approach and ended up circling the Everglades in order to identify and fix the problem with the landing gear.

The captain tells the first officer—the guy who is flying the plane at the time—to put the plane on autopilot so that all hands can address the primary issue: the landing gear. The first officer removes the lens for the gear indicator light and it jams going back in. The captain then sends the second officer down to the forward electronics bay to check the gear visually, a task made more difficult in the dark. Ultimately, the captain and first officer end up dedicating several precious minutes to the indicator light. Meanwhile, the plane is losing altitude at a rate that, while meaningful, is nearly imperceptible.

Then, a half-second C-chord chime is heard in the cockpit, alerting everyone to the fact that the altitude has changed by more than 250 feet.

But “no crewmember commented on the C-chord. No pitch change to correct for the loss of altitude was recorded.”

Meanwhile, the second officer, sent to confirm deployment of the landing gear through an optical sight in the electronics bay (where two rods must physically align, lit by the wheelwell service light) isn’t having any luck. “I can’t see it, it’s pitch dark and I throw the little light, I get, ah, nothing.”

The Miami approach control checks in with the plane again, but no fewer than three key crew members and a fourth—an Eastern maintenance specialist riding in the observer seat—are dedicating all of their attention to confirming the landing gear is functional.

The first officer asks, “We’re still at two thousand [feet of altitude], right?” The captain responds, “Hey, what’s happening here?”

Seconds later, the first of six radio-altimeter beeps is heard before the sound of impact—as the plane carrying 163 passengers and 13 crew crashes, ultimately claiming the lives of 101 souls.

Sadly, the culprit was not the landing gear but the cockpit indicator light, where two bulbs had burned out, and the inability of the crew to confirm the deployment of the gear in the dark.

Sadder still is the fact that only 94 seconds before impact, the crew heard the C-chord chime designed to alert everyone to the loss of altitude, but it didn’t register.

In fact, the chime was just one of at least three signals the crew received, but they were consumed by the noise of the hunt for the indicator light.

Nate Silver, whose book The Signal and the Noise was largely responsible for the popularization of this dichotomy, defines the two as follows:

If you’re reading this, the chances are pretty good that the stakes aren’t quite as high for you as they were for the four men fixated on the landing gear indicators. Actual lives may not be at risk. But I don’t think it’s an overstatement to suggest that our ability to recognize the proper signals amidst the increasing din of noise in our world could have life-changing implications.

Signal Detection Theory

It was all the way back in 1966 that researchers Green and Swets gave us Signal Detection Theory and Psychophysics, and they note that detection of signal and noise has two separable components:

• Sensitivity: How well you can discriminate signal from noise

• Criterion: Where you set your threshold for calling something a signal

Note that we could have perfect sensitivity and still miss what could be most important because our criterion is set incorrectly. The trick is that it’s very difficult to reset criterion in the moment; it must be set in advance.

Let’s look at three domains where these implications often arise and ways to deal with each of them through the signal/noise lens:

In Investing

This one’s almost too easy to recognize because the noise is so prevalent. It’s the daily ticker, the 24-hour TV and sensationalized headline generator, the forecasts and predictions—and it might even be your financial advisor if they still subscribe to the antiquated hot-tip approach to investment ideas that has evolved into the more palatable, “I have a new idea I’d like to explore with you.”

The findings here are clear, and they don’t even suggest that the noise machine is pumping out lies—but instead that an overabundance of information in investing can be counterproductive:

• In the late 1980s, Paul Andreassen’s research found that a group of investors given no news outperformed the group given news by a meaningful margin. Again, this wasn’t because the news was false, but because the news drove trading activity and the activity, as it often does, pushed down returns.

• In 1997, Thaler, Tversky, Kahneman, and Schwartz—three of whom helped found the field of behavioral economics—gave all their investing subjects the same information, but they changed the frequency of when that information was provided and found that investors who got the most frequent feedback took the least risk and earned the least money. Loss aversion magnified by the frequency of information.

• And in 2008, Barber and Odean noted that the news about attention-grabbing stocks was noisier and drove more buying, but not selling. This leads to what we, as financial advisors, often see—“portfolios” that are really more of a collection of once-compelling ideas, not a thoughtfully constructed grouping of complementary securities.

The biggest challenge we have as investors is that the criterion is often established by the industry—including the financial media—and it is very much on purpose, because their noise is designed to get your attention and to lead you to decisions that may or may not benefit you, but will definitely benefit them.

And interestingly, all too often, the real signals in investing have little, if anything, to do with the specific securities that daily demand our attention. Instead, your savings rate, time horizon, allocation, cost reduction, and commitment to long-term planning more often lead to the most desirable outcomes.

In Work

You know the noise in the work setting, don’t you? The inbox, instant messaging, the meeting, the meeting about the meeting, the industry headlines, and especially today, the AI discourse churn. It might all be true at some level and worthy of our attention at some time, but collectively, it can often fill up our days and crowd out the signal—the two or three outcomes that would make your multitudinous effort in any given year a success.

But this is a battle, especially because in the work setting, we often lack control over the inputs. It is other people who set the criterion, and it is often up to us to navigate the noise with deftness and respect. Think about it: The captain on the plane told the one person whose entire job was flying the plane, the first officer, to go help with the light. Everyone was focused on the problem, not the outcome.

But have no doubt that we are the ones who will be found responsible for the outcomes; therefore, it is up to us to perpetually prioritize the signals amidst an ever-increasing cascade of noise.

In Life

The good news is that we have more control over the noise in our lives. The bad news is that it never stops. Whether through social media or a drive through the neighborhood, the comparison feed is constant.

We, too, get to choose the signals in life. It’s what we read, watch, and scroll. It’s what we eat and drink, how we sleep and exercise. It’s how we communicate with our partners, parents, kids, and friends.

But one of the biggest challenges in navigating the signals and noise in life is that the criterion can be a little murky. There’s no default C-chord chime in the conversation you’re having with your spouse, although we can create one of our own design. And for many, the health piece is too often the radio altimeter signaling an imminent crash.

Seth Godin has a way of getting at this that I keep coming back to.

“A whisper in a quiet room is all you need,” he writes. “There’s so little noise, so few distractions, that the energy of the whisper is enough to make a dent.” And then, a few lines later, the part I’d tape to a monitor:

“Until you remove the noise, you’re going to miss a lot of signal.”

That might be the whole thing. The C-chord worked. It sounded exactly when it was designed to sound. But four capable men just heard a whisper in a nightclub, and it never registered.

You probably won’t find the signal by listening harder, but by making the room quieter—and you have to do it before the bulb burns out, because in the moment, there is no room left to quiet.

So what can you do to create space for more signal and less noise—this week—in your money, your work, and your life?

Quote O' The Week

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900–1944) was a pilot first, and a writer second. He carried mail for Aéropostale across the Sahara and later over the Andes. For a stretch he ran a remote airfield on the edge of the Spanish Sahara, where the job included negotiating with local tribes for the release of downed pilots. Most of us are familiar with him for writing The Little Prince, but this week’s quote comes from his 1939 memoir of those flying years, Wind, Sand and Stars, which won both the Académie française’s Grand Prix du roman and the U.S. National Book Award.

On July 31, 1944, he took off from Corsica on a reconnaissance flight over occupied France and never came back. 54 years later, a fisherman off the coast of Marseille, found his silver identity bracelet.

Weekly Market Update

Of the indices we track, the only one that eked out a small gain was international value. Everything else was in the red:

• - 1.43% .SPX (500 U.S. large companies)

• - 0.50% IWD (U.S. large value companies)

• - 1.68% IWM (U.S. small companies)

• - 1.15% IWN (U.S. small value companies)

• + 0.31% EFV (International value companies)

• - 0.62% SCZ (International small companies)

• - 0.02% VGIT (U.S. intermediate-term Treasury bonds

Leading Economic Indicators Showing Positive Momentum (Finally)

Contributed by Tony Welch, CFA®, CFP®, CMT, Chief Investment Officer, SignatureFD

The Conference Board creates their index of Leading Economic Indicators (LEI) by evaluating 10 components. The underlying indicators cover market data like stock prices and interest rate spreads, as well as non-financial data on the job market, consumer confidence, and housing. It has been an odd expansion because for most of it, the LEI was falling, which would normally be associated with an upcoming recession. That recession never materialized, and now the LEIs are finally showing some positive momentum, consistent with 2-3% economic growth.

And the improvement has been broad-based. Nine of 10 indicators in the LEI showed improvement for July. Even outside of the LEIs, we can see some building economic momentum in manufacturing surveys and industrial production. The economic backdrop is not perfect, but the improvement in LEIs is a welcome development.

Chart O’ The Week

The Message from Our Indicators

Last week, rising interest rates captivated not only the market’s attention, but also the Treasury Department, which stepped in to buy longer-dated Treasurys. Ned Davis Research explored past market bubbles, and one commonality is that they had all ended as interest rates worked higher. While we don’t think stocks are in a traditional bubble, we still think rising interest rates are a threat and one of the more important indicators to watch in upcoming weeks and months.

Higher rates bite in a few important ways. First, the economic expansion has been led by investment. A higher cost of capital could threaten the investment cycle. And second, higher rates tend to result in lower market valuations. Your future cash flows just aren’t worth as much when discounted back at a higher rate.

Our base case is that a late-Summer/Fall correction is likely to materialize, which could help cool excessive investor optimism. If that were to occur, we would expect a year-end rally that could bring the market back up to its all-time highs.

One reason we expect a correction to remain contained is that corporate fundamentals continue to provide an important pillar of support. 468 S&P 500 companies have reported, and their blended earnings growth rate is 36%. That is an incredible number at this point in the cycle. Earnings growth this strong tends to occur following a recession. Much of the strength has come from non-operating activities, such as investment appreciation, but operating earnings have also been strong, and topline sales growth has been 14%.

For now, the longer-term evidence remains bullish, but that doesn’t mean the market will not experience corrective action. We would actually expect a correction in the coming weeks, but as long as fundamentals continue to hold up, we believe corrections are likely to remain benign.

Have a great rest of your weekend—and week to come!

Tim

But is it realistic? I mean, doesn’t the world tend to reward us for what we actually produce, not our processes?

We’ll take a look at the research this week and propose an intellectually honest approach to what we aim at versus what we judge by—from the preacher’s pulpit, to the athletic practice field, to the poker table (and back).

Meanwhile, Tony updates us on the markets, where inflation appears to be a non-issue for stocks.

Thanks for joining us!

Tim

Tim Maurer, CFP®, RLP®

Partner

SIGNATUREFD

In this Net Worthwhile® Weekly you'll find:

• Financial LIFE Planning:

  • Who Pays You For Your Process?

• Quote O' The Week:

  • James Clear

• Weekly Market Update:

  • Inflation a Non-Issue for Stocks

Financial LIFE Planning

Who Pays You For Your Process?

From the pulpit to the practice field to the poker table--the case for grading the decision, not the result

I recently heard a preacher say, “Saying yes is the win, not the outcome.” From the pulpit, he was suggesting this posture as a game plan for the effective navigation of life’s big decisions. But from his pastoral perspective, while certainly not easier, it is simpler to suggest that his parishioners might leave the outcomes to God—and that it’s the initial step of obedience to the divine that we’re called to follow.

But what if someone doesn’t believe in God, “the universe,” or some other higher power? It’s hard to entrust outcomes to an entity you don’t believe in, right?

What’s interesting, however, is that the advice we’re getting from some of the top minds in the highest level of sports and executive leadership development offers similar guidance, albeit for different, earthly, evidence-based reasons.

We’ll explore some of that guidance, but first I think we need to say something out loud:

The notion that our processes are more important than the outcomes derived sounds ridiculous in the real world!

How many people’s companies and bosses employ them—pay them—for their processes? No, especially at the higher end of the compensation spectrum, most people aren’t paid for their mere effort, but for the revenue generation that comes as a result.

Indeed, even some of the very same teams and companies who may preach a process over outcome mentality will distance themselves, surprisingly quickly, if and when the results don’t match the plans.

And shouldn’t they?

From The Top Minds In Sports

In 2013, 60 Minutes correspondent Armen Keteyian challenged the legendary football coach, Nick Saban, on his philosophy that focusing on winning the game—on the field or in business—was counterproductive.

“It’s like jumping out of a plane without a chute,” Keteyian quipped. “I mean in your business, what? We’re not going to focus on winning?”

Saban responded, “Right. But it really is the simple way to do it and it’s the best way to do it.”

And beyond the record that he had to prove it, Saban’s conviction didn’t come as a personal epiphany. It came from Dr. Lionel Rosen at Michigan State, who observed that football games were made up of a series of individual plays that consume about seven seconds on average. He concluded, therefore, that coaches should stop asking players to win the game—and instead ask them to win the next seven seconds.

Saban applied this strategy when his 4-4 Michigan State team entered a contest against THE Ohio State as a four-touchdown underdog—and won, 28-24, after trailing 24-9 at one point.

“That 1998 game changed my whole coaching philosophy,” Saban said.

And Nick Saban wasn’t the first high-level coach to employ this strategy. The men’s college basketball coach with the most championships all time, John Wooden, was famous for insisting on a focus other than winning.

“I never mentioned winning to my players,” Wooden recounted. “I mentioned constantly that all I wanted them to do was the best they could.”

But here’s the rub: Alabama didn’t hire Saban for his processes; they hired him for championships. And UCLA didn’t hire Wooden just to see a bunch of kids doing their best, but for the banners that will forever adorn their arena.

Both coaches were compensated for their outcomes, despite using a unique approach to get there. The real question, therefore, isn’t whether results matter—of course they do. The real question is: what is the best way to get there?

From The Top Minds In Research

In a recent 2024 study, “The performance and psychological effects of goal setting in sport: A systematic review and meta-analysis,” researchers found that self-referenced goals—focused on process, performance, and mastery—produced gains, while goals based on outperforming other people didn’t improve performance…and may have created measurable harm.

And isn’t this true in life and money? We’ve heard the now proverbial quote (likely misattributed to our 26th President, Theodore Roosevelt), that “Comparison is the thief of joy,” but according to this research, it’s also the thief of, well, winning.

So, the question remains, how can we better judge a person’s actions, if not by the outcomes or comparisons to others?

Another team of researchers—in this case, J. Edward Russo, professor of marketing and behavioral science at Cornell and Paul J.H. Schoemaker at Wharton—have given us a visual to guide us. It helps us determine when not to reward outcomes that may have been incidental (or even accidental) and when to reward excellent work that for other reasons may simply not have resulted in the desired outcome:

You see, in lieu of rewarding and punishing based solely on outcome, we can do so based on quadrant.

From Family Poker Night

A simple but powerful example of this can be seen at my kitchen table on any given evening. My wife and I love to host and to engage our guests in unique ways that incorporate our family members, often including some kind of games. One of our favorites is to play low-stakes Texas Hold ‘Em poker. We’re barely more than novices ourselves, but we often find ourselves having a blast teaching guests who’ve never played before the truism that poker takes an hour to learn and a lifetime to master.

We were doing just that about a week ago when one of our guests folded a hand—wisely, I might add—and yet asked if she could hold onto her cards so that she could see how the hand turned out, once all the community cards were on the table. At that moment, our 20-year-old son, who was sitting next to our guest, delivered one of the best lessons she could ever learn in poker—and probably also in life.

He said, “If you want to hold onto them just to see how it turns out for the sake of curiosity, do it. But a good rule of thumb is that when you fold for what you know is a good reason, you should hand those folded cards to the dealer and just forget about them. Because if you’d have ended up getting really lucky and winning the hand, it would likely only reinforce what could be a bad future decision.”

And in poker, the same is also true on the other side. There are times when you might stay in a hand with great cards and suffer a “bad beat” to someone who just gets lucky. You’ve lost your chips, but you played your cards right.

So a good rule of thumb, if winning is your objective, is to not focus on winning—and focus instead on the sound practices that should help you arrive at your goal?

World Series of Poker winner and author, Annie Duke, put it this way:

“People generally way too tightly link the quality of outcomes with the quality of decisions; they will often ignore the presence of luck when they’re evaluating, particularly, the outcomes of others.”

Duke is actually addressing three fascinating concepts here in one quote: First, she references the fallacy of resulting—a concept in behavioral finance where we incorrectly link the quality of outcomes with the quality of decisions. But she lands with another two-punch kicker combining the self-serving bias with the fundamental attribution error. Here, we tend to attribute our successes to our own ingenuity while assuming our failures are due to circumstances. Then, we turn that on its head with others, presuming that their successes were born of luck while faulting them for their failures. Ouch.

From Poker To The Pulpit

And with that, we conclude with what might appear to be an unlikely connection—from poker back to the pulpit. And it makes sense, because in the end, there is enough irreducible uncertainty in our lives, in our work, and in our financial planning that we must leave room for mystery.

And I think it’s one of the reasons that behavioral scientist and author Arthur Brooks insists that one of the keys to living a life of true joy is having a worldview—religious or otherwise—that helps us navigate the mystery in a way that doesn’t cripple us.

Because sometimes we’re going to win when we should’ve lost. Sometimes we’re going to lose when we should’ve won. And sometimes, winning is, indeed, just saying yes and taking the next step forward.

Quote O' The Week

You probably know James Clear as the author of Atomic Habits, and for good reason. The book has passed 30 million copies sold, is in 60+ languages, and spent 350+ weeks on the New York Times list. But what you probably don't know is that on the last day of his sophomore year of high school, a classmate lost the bat in his hands and it hit Clear in the face, causing multiple skull fractures, the shattering of both eye sockets, and a broken nose. After a series of seizures, doctors induced a coma—the beginning of a months-long recovery. What came next wasn’t a headline. While his college peers stayed up late playing video games, Clear went to bed early, and did the work. Six years later, he was named the top male athlete at Denison University and selected to the ESPN Academic All-America team.

Weekly Market Update

Mostly moderately up:

• + 0.36% .SPX (500 U.S. large companies)

• + 0.39% IWD (U.S. large value companies)

• + 1.17% IWM (U.S. small companies)

• + 0.85% IWN (U.S. small value companies)

• - 0.34% EFV (International value companies)

• + 0.39% SCZ (International small companies)

• + 0.02% VGIT (U.S. intermediate-term Treasury bonds

Inflation a Non-Issue for Stocks

Contributed by Tony Welch, CFA®, CFP®, CMT, Chief Investment Officer, SignatureFD

The change in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for July came in right in line with expectations. CPI grew 0.1% on the month and 3.4% over the past year. Core CPI, which excludes food and energy, rose 0.2% on the month and 2.5% over the past year. Inflation remains stubbornly above the Federal Reserve’s target of 2%, but there isn’t much the Fed can do about supply constraints. We suspect inflation will be a major political lightning rod in upcoming months, ahead of the November mid-term elections.

And though we believe inflation is likely to take center stage in the ads you see on TV, it’s important to note that for stocks, we believe inflation is not really an issue today. The chart below shows CPI in orange and compares the reading to its five-year average (black dashed line). When inflation is at least -0.5% below its five-year average, as it is today, the stock market has gained almost 15% annualized. That isn’t to say there are no potential market negatives, but inflation dynamics are not one of them.

Chart O’ The Week

The Message from Our Indicators

Interest rates have drifted higher this year as investors have been baking in the potential of a Fed interest rate hike this year. The softer inflation over the past two months likely gives the Fed more leeway to hold off on hiking. And in fact, following the CPI and producer price (PPI) releases last week, the odds of a Fed hike in September fell from about a coinflip to 31%, according to the CME Group’s Fed Watch tool. As the prospects for a hike fade, we expect that is likely to take some pressure off interest rates. That’s important because big macro variables like rates and inflation tend to influence stock market prices when they are volatile. But when they are relatively stable, we can comfortably shift our attention to corporate fundamentals.

And on that score, Q2 looks like a relative home run. According to WisdomTree, 456 S&P 500 companies have reported for Q2. In aggregate, they have reported about 37% earnings growth and 15% in sales growth. Much of the earnings growth is coming from “non-operating” earnings, which capture gains or losses from things outside the company’s day-to-day operations, such as investments. But operating earnings have also been strong, in line with the strong sales growth.

This year’s relative earnings boom has been important because we entered the year with stretched valuations. Strong earnings have allowed the market to rally this year without becoming more expensive. There are long-term risks to earnings, maybe most notably, any slowdown in the massive investment into AI and AI infrastructure that will be depreciated in coming years. But for now, earnings growth is a bullish input.

From a technical perspective, the uptrend remains intact, but market sentiment is beginning to stretch to an optimistic level. Historically, the best gains have occurred when market participants have been pessimistic. So we suspect sentiment is at least a near-term headwind. And the calendar is tricky. The combination of August and September has been the weakest stretch for stocks, historically. A correction around this time of year would be a completely normal development and can help alleviate the optimistic condition. For now, we would continue to give the bull market the benefit of the doubt.

Hoping your weekend is more signal than noise!

Tim

Seems like a lot, right? An audacious aspiration?

Maybe, but this week, we’ll explore three potential layers of outsized impact that a financial advisor can have when we assume a humbler posture in our work. And Tony tells us why a weak jobs report may not necessarily signal a weak economy.

Thanks for joining us!

Tim

Tim Maurer, CFP®, RLP®

Partner

SIGNATUREFD

In this Net Worthwhile® Weekly you'll find:

• Financial LIFE Planning:

  • Pursuit, Not Persuasion

• Quote O' The Week:

  • Rachel Naomi Remen

• Weekly Market Update:

  • A Weak Jobs Report, But Not Necessarily a Weak Economy

Financial LIFE Planning

Pursuit, Not Persuasion

How A Humbler Approach To Financial Planning Could Be More Transformative

Ironic, isn’t it, that we could have an even more transformative role in the lives of clients if we assumed a humbler posture? But before we could even hope to ascend to one of the most impactful relationships in someone’s life, we have to have any impact at all, right? And preferably a positive impact.

If we’re being intellectually honest, we must first acknowledge that this may be where the financial services industry has struggled historically. When I started in this business—in the 1900s—I’ll never forget several snapshots about my first orientation to the financial advisory business.

One of those snapshots involved observing a group of stock brokers and their daily habits. Every morning, they went to the company cafeteria and collectively discerned what a handful of defensible transactions could be for that day. They might be buys or sells of individual stocks or options (covered calls, to be specific). Didn’t really matter, because they’d make money either way.

Each transaction would be accompanied by a commission, and the broker cohort could therefore calculate precisely how much money they wanted to make that day. Then they’d refill their coffee, head upstairs to their respective corner offices, make the calls and deliver the accompanying sales pitches to their clients—customers, really—and likely make all the money they wanted to make that day before lunch.

Now, this might sound like a thing of the past, but I’m not that old, and it wasn’t that long ago that this method was common industry practice. And, as a current or prospective advisory client, I assure you that some version of this method is still alive and well in any of the domains where the advisory relationship is contingent or centered on products or even planning techniques, rather than on you, the client—your hopes, dreams, fears, concerns, goals, and values.

Most Important Meeting This Week

Or, think about it this way: Advisors—you may struggle to become one of the most impactful relationships in the life of a client if you don’t first have the ability to “make someone’s day” or facilitate what could easily be the most important meeting they have that week. And we don’t do this through convincing, but through curiosity. It’s through pursuit, not persuasion.

The late MIT organizational guru, Edgar Schein, calls the better path “humble inquiry,” saying it is “…not a checklist to follow or a set of prewritten questions—it is behavior that comes out of respect, genuine curiosity, and the desire to improve the quality of the conversation by stimulating greater openness and the sharing of task relevant information.”

I want to acknowledge for a moment that this might sting for many advisors who have learned the practice of financial planning through checklists and prewritten questions. (But take heart, friend, that’s why they call this a practice.) Therefore, imagine for a moment the difference between a meeting where an advisor has a predetermined outline that includes a rote review of the portfolio, an update on the newest tax regs, and a pitch for long-term care insurance—versus an open-ended discussion that creates the space for the client to share that they’re considering a career change, where the advisor then pivots to a white-boarding session to explore the options the client has considered…that results in two new possibilities that weren’t on the table before they came to the office that day.

The first version of this meeting could be productive, but the second version could be legitimately transformative. Indeed, why shouldn’t every meeting we have with a client be the most important or impactful that they have that day—or that week?

Life Changing

A good friend of mine regularly employs hyperbole with one of his conversational taglines: “It’ll change your life.” He could be talking about chicken tenders, a particular cigar, a vintage album, or a new book. And the funny thing is that it’s often not an exaggeration.

Nor do I believe it’s exaggerative to imagine that the influence we have as financial advisors could be genuinely life-changing. Not when I think about the role that a truly great advisor has in the life of his or her clients. Not when I think about who clients partner with in preparation for the most joyful moments in their lives—college, graduations, weddings, births, career changes, home sales and purchases, geographic moves, unforgettable experiences, and just about every major life transition.

And let’s not forget that life change isn’t always of the headlining variety. It may be directly through financial planning, but it may also be, like the friend I mentioned, through a simple suggestion or the gift of a book with a timely inscription that you move the needle for your clients in a measurable way.

One Of The Most Impactful Relationships In Life

But if you’re still wondering if it’s a reach to imagine a financial advisor being one of the most impactful relationships in someone’s life, think about this:

Who is likely to be among the first 10 phone calls after any number of life’s most disappointing moments—a fire, car accident, disabling injury, or the call that every advisor will inevitably receive when someone passes away.

Indeed, audacious though it may seem on its face, I don’t think it’s a stretch to imagine that a great financial advisor could be one of the most impactful relationships an individual has, outside of immediate family and close friends. But that role also comes with more weight and responsibility than we might imagine.

Indeed, the very advisor who inspired this post—Aaron Greaves, the Founder and CEO of Money Compass Wealth—offered an important caveat to his founding aspiration. He acknowledged that it may have been, in part, born of a touch of youthful naivety and even selfishness, because it initially put him in a starring role.

What he’s since learned is that we can only become one of the most impactful relationships in someone’s life if we’re willing to assume the role of the servant, not the superhero. “All of a sudden, you’ve got a huge amount of obligation and responsibility that comes with that.”

This is the responsibility of a true fiduciary—a true helping professional—a true advisor. And I’m using the qualifier “true” here as operative, because it’s no small effort to check all the boxes to become a fiduciary contractually with the word advisor emblazoned on your business card. But that’s an exterior effort.

The true advisor who aspires to be one of the most impactful relationships in the lives of his or her clients likely must also pursue a great deal of interior work.

And that, by the way, is why I’m writing this post—not because I’ve figured it all out, and certainly not because my own interior work is complete—but because in that work I’ve found this profession to be a path of transformation, for both client and advisor.

Quote O' The Week

Rachel Naomi Remen, MD is a Cornell-trained physician, Clinical Professor of Family and Community Medicine at UCSF, and founder of the Institute for the Study of Health and Illness at Commonweal. Her curriculum "The Healer's Art" is now taught in 90 American medical schools and in seven other countries. She's also had Crohn's disease since she was fifteen—more than sixty years—which means she has spent her entire career on both sides of the exam table.

Weekly Market Update

Up. BIG.:

• + 3.58% .SPX (500 U.S. large companies)

• + 2.28% IWD (U.S. large value companies)

• + 3.56% IWM (U.S. small companies)

• + 1.93% IWN (U.S. small value companies)

• + 1.71% EFV (International value companies)

• + 3.46% SCZ (International small companies)

• + 0.12% VGIT (U.S. intermediate-term Treasury bonds

A Weak Jobs Report, But Not Necessarily a Weak Economy

Contributed by Tony Welch, CFA®, CFP®, CMT, Chief Investment Officer, SignatureFD

The July employment report delivered a disappointing headline, with nonfarm payrolls declining by 23,000 and prior months revised lower by a combined 103,000 jobs. On the surface, that is clearly a softer labor-market signal.

But the details were considerably less alarming.

Healthcare continued to add jobs, while both manufacturing and construction employment increased. Much of the weakness was concentrated in retail and leisure and hospitality, which lost 19,000 and 40,000 jobs, respectively. Strategas notes that some of this weakness may reflect the fading impact of one-time events such as the World Cup and America 250. Excluding those two categories, overall payroll growth would have been modestly positive.

Other measures also suggest the labor market is cooling rather than collapsing. The unemployment rate actually declined to 4.1%, although falling labor-force participation contributed to that improvement. Wage growth was similarly restrained, with average hourly earnings rising just 0.1% for the month and 3.2% over the past year.

That wage number looks particularly benign when viewed alongside improving productivity. Productivity has now grown at least 2% year-over-year for three consecutive years, while unit labor costs increased just 1.4% over the past year, the slowest pace outside the pandemic since 2017.

The labor market is unquestionably less dynamic than it was a few years ago, but slower job creation needs to be considered alongside slower growth in the available labor supply. For now, we believe the evidence looks more consistent with a “low hire, low fire” environment than an economy sliding toward recession.

Chart O’ The Week

The Message from Our Indicators

The economic and market backdrop remains constructive, even as several indicators suggest investors should be prepared for a bumpier stretch.

Economic momentum has actually strengthened recently. The ISM Manufacturing PMI jumped to 55.6 in July, its highest level since May 2022 and a level historically consistent with continued economic expansion. Production, employment, and new orders all improved. Services remain in expansion as well, with the ISM Services PMI at 54.1 and the S&P Global composite PMI reaching its highest level since last October.

Corporate fundamentals tell a similar story. With most S&P 500 companies having reported, second-quarter earnings growth has reached nearly 50%, more than double the 24.4% expected at the start of the quarter. Revenue growth has also exceeded expectations, and nearly every sector has surpassed its initial earnings-growth estimate.

Our market indicators also continue to favor equities. NDR’s U.S. Asset Allocation Model remains at its maximum 70% equity allocation, while both its price-based and macro/fundamental composites favor stocks over bonds and cash. Longer-term breadth has also remained resilient despite significant rotations beneath the surface of the market.

There are, however, reasons to expect more volatility. August through October has historically been the weakest three-month period of the year. At the same time, inflation pressures remain elevated in portions of the economy, particularly within services, where the ISM prices index has climbed near its highest level since late 2022.

We believe the weight of the evidence continues to favor the bull market. Economic activity is expanding, corporate earnings are considerably better than expected, and our primary market indicators remain constructive. But strong fundamentals don’t eliminate volatility. With seasonal headwinds building and inflation still complicating the Fed’s job, we believe investors should expect a less linear path higher.

Wishing you strong fundamentals and low volatility this weekend!

Tim

The line between those two lives is more nuanced than it looks, so in this week’s Financial LIFE Planning section I called on C. S. Lewis. What he wrote in a preface in 1961 is less a warning than a description; unnervingly precise, and closer to home than you’d expect.

I’m going deep this week, and I hope you find it life-giving—as I also hope you find Tony’s Weekly Market Update, Looking Beyond Headline GDP, edifying!

Tim

Tim Maurer, CFP®, RLP®

Partner

SIGNATUREFD

In this Net Worthwhile® Weekly you'll find:

• Financial LIFE Planning:

  • C. S. Lewis On Hell—And Your Financial Plan

• Quote O' The Week:

  • Lynne Twist

• Weekly Market Update:

  • Looking Beyond Headline GDP

Financial LIFE Planning

C. S. Lewis On Hell—And Your Financial Plan

What a 1961 definition of Hell has to say about the difference between being rich and being wealthy.

“We must picture Hell as a state where everyone is perpetually concerned about his own dignity and advancement, where everyone has a grievance, and where everyone lives the deadly serious passions of envy, self-importance, and resentment.”

That’s C. S. Lewis, writing in 1961—and it is almost surely more applicable in 2026 than when it was penned.

I regularly range into matters of psychology and philosophy—even spirituality—to explore insights that can aid us in a deeper understanding of our personal finances. But despite holding firm to my own convictions on the spiritual front, I’m not a pastor, priest, or rabbi, so I tend to steer clear of the overtly religious. We don’t need to share the same religious convictions, however, to learn from one of the greatest thinkers and authors of the 20th Century—a famously former atheist turned Christian apologist.

Lewis wrote those words in the preface he added to The Screwtape Letters years after its initial publication, his novel of a senior demon’s letters of advice to his apprentice nephew. And notice what he’s doing: defining Hell not as a physical location, but as a state of being.

And yet the more I reread this passage, the more I feel like he’s tapping into something far earthier and present than a metaphor or a seemingly distant location we’d prefer to never visit—something that can be readily applied in even our financial planning. And it also has me asking the question: Is there a type of financial life planning that is more likely to lead us to Lewis’s version of Hell—and one that is more likely to lead us in precisely the other direction? Let’s break it down and see.

3 Attributes Of Lewis’s Hell

First, let’s note a few things about the state of being that Lewis describes—and how easy it is for any of us to find ourselves there, especially today:

• “…everyone is perpetually concerned about his own dignity and advancement…” Everyone is self-focused, presumably rather than others-focused. Self-preservation is a powerful, and in some cases positive, instinct, but we also know that perpetually positioning ourselves as the center of the universe tends to leave us with an ironically dissatisfying ache, doesn’t it? It’s almost as though we were wired for relationships and for applying ourselves to something bigger or more than just…ourselves.

• “…where everyone has a grievance…” Despite living at a time when there are more ways to pursue comfort and convenience than at any other time in human history, it seems that our penchant for the expression of complaints and grievances is also at an all-time high. And I’d submit that sitting near the other end of the grievance continuum is another “g” word (that also happens to play a massive role in our financial planning): gratitude.

• “…where everyone lives the deadly serious passions of envy, self-importance, and resentment.” It’s almost impossible to never struggle with envy, self-importance, and resentment, but note Lewis’s deliberate choice of words regarding the next-level nature of this particular fixation, where these fleeting temptations turn into living with these as deadly serious passions. I want to be careful not to paint too broadly with this brush, but I can’t help but think that envy, self-importance, and resentment are three of the foundational pillars of at least social media, if not society as a whole, in our current age.

2 Versions Of Financial Planning

So, here’s the challenge as we consider this breakdown in relation to our personal finances: There’s a version of financial planning that amounts to little more than piling up as much money as possible and distributing it as efficiently as practical. Advancement, accumulation, even striving to become worthy of envy, and especially the envy of those with whom we have a grievance. Ouch.

But there’s also a version that has a very different orientation. It begins with discerning and articulating a life of purpose that is about far more than our own personal edification, and then marshaling our scarcer earthly resources—our time, influence, money, energy, and relationships—in pursuit of that purpose.

And yet, whether earthly or from beyond, there are forces that seem inclined to herd us in the direction of Lewis’s Hell. Which means our more aspirational paths and plans are not a destination to be reached once and for all time, but an ideal toward which we will forever be seeking alignment.

And that, I propose, is where financial planning transcends a mere ordering of our stuff and becomes a practice of naming, ordering, and re-ordering our loves—while investing our resources to those worthy ends.

Multidimensional Wealth Management

It’s not a linear line from rags to riches—from lack to plenty—that is wholly exterior, but a multidimensional transformation that has the ability to change us also at an interior level, for better or too often for worse. Consider this 2x2 visual:

Note that the bottom two boxes in the grid represent the more limited approach to financial planning I referenced—the one that may even contribute to our spending (much) more time than is preferable in Lewis’s Hell. But that’s only addressing the external factors of traversing from a literal lack to plenty. An exterior-only approach can slide you from left to right across the bottom row; it struggles to lift you out of it.

And there’s one more through line in this potent passage that speaks directly to financial planning: None of those inhabiting Lewis’s Hell are suffering from something that is missing. Indeed, they have an image that appears to be worth advancing. They possess a grievance, or several. And they are actively pursuing what they envy while nursing what they resent.

Rich, But Not Wealthy

This may lead us to wonder whether the first step out of Hell and toward something preferable is to release something, to give something away, to decline an invitation or honor. Maybe that something is a social media account, a status symbol, a promotion or opportunity that would improve our financial standing.

Lewis suggested elsewhere that the doors of Hell are locked from the inside. If he’s right, don’t we possess the key? And is it possible that releasing something is what it looks like to turn it?

I’ve met plenty of people who are rich by any measure but who aren’t truly wealthy—because what they really lack is contentment (which, interestingly, often has nothing to do with their finances). True wealth—contentment—doesn’t necessarily require a change in your income or net worth (in the vast majority of cases, anyway). Because when we wrestle with our restlessness, make a habit, if not a ritual, of gratitude, and forgive our grievances, we can find peace even in the midst of lack. And perhaps not surprisingly, those who can find peace with less are often better skilled at enjoying more. Enough.

Quote O' The Week

Lynne Twist spent twenty years as chief fundraising officer for The Hunger Project, raising more than $120 million across forty countries. Her work has taken her from Calcutta alongside Mother Teresa to refugee camps in Ethiopia to the private offices where some of the world's wealthiest families decide what to do with their money. In The Soul of Money, she argues that sufficiency isn't an amount you finally reach but an experience you generate.

Weekly Market Update

Almost all in the green this week:

• + 1.05% .SPX (500 U.S. large companies)

• + 1.44% IWD (U.S. large value companies)

• + 0.01% IWM (U.S. small companies)

• - 0.08% IWN (U.S. small value companies)

• + 2.32% EFV (International value companies)

• + 1.51% SCZ (International small companies)

• + 0.05% VGIT (U.S. intermediate-term Treasury bonds

Looking Beyond Headline GDP

Contributed by Tony Welch, CFA®, CFP®, CMT, Chief Investment Officer, SignatureFD

On the surface, second-quarter GDP was a little disappointing, with the economy expanding at a 1.5% annualized pace. But the headline number doesn’t tell the full story. Much of the weakness came from inventories and trade, while underlying domestic demand remained remarkably healthy.

In fact, private final sales to domestic purchasers, a measure that strips out many of GDP’s more volatile components, grew at its fastest pace in more than three years. Consumer spending remained firm, businesses continued to invest, and the labor market has yet to show meaningful signs of deterioration.

The takeaway is an important one. Economic growth may be moderating from the rapid pace we’ve seen since the pandemic, but it is not rolling over. That continues to support corporate earnings and helps explain why recession fears have remained subdued.

The challenge, however, is that strong demand also makes it more difficult for inflation to return to the Federal Reserve’s 2% target. While inflation has improved meaningfully from its peak, resilient demand gives policymakers little reason to rush toward easier monetary policy.

Chart O’ The Week

The Message from Our Indicators

This week’s data largely reinforced our constructive outlook, although the environment remains more challenging than earlier this year. Corporate earnings continue to impress. Almost 60% of S&P 500 companies have now reported second-quarter results, with earnings growth tracking about 25% year over year, a very strong pace. Revenue growth has also remained healthy, suggesting companies are benefiting from solid underlying demand rather than cost-cutting alone.

Economic indicators continue to paint a similar picture. Manufacturing activity has improved, capital spending remains healthy, and consumer confidence has softened only modestly while remaining consistent with continued economic expansion.

The primary headwind remains interest rates. The Federal Reserve left policy unchanged this week, but three officials dissented in favor of raising rates, underscoring the committee’s continued concern about inflation. Markets are increasingly pricing in the possibility of another rate hike later this year if inflation fails to moderate further.

Meanwhile, higher Treasury yields and rising energy prices have become increasingly important variables for investors. Higher rates reduce the relative attractiveness of equities, while elevated oil prices risk slowing progress on inflation over the coming months. Neither development necessarily signals the end of the bull market, but both argue for more measured return expectations after a strong first half of the year.

Bottom line: Our indicators continue to suggest the economy remains on solid footing and earnings growth has been better than expected. At the same time, resilient growth is likely to keep the Federal Reserve cautious, and interest rates elevated. We continue to expect volatility along the way, but the evidence still points to an expansion rather than an impending recession.

Have a great rest of your weekend!

Tim

Laura Hillenbrand’s Unbroken, the tale of Louis Zamperini is probably at the top of this list for me. Still, the way David McCullough brings U.S. history to present-day life was my first taste of narrative non-fiction, followed by everything that Erik Larson has ever written. David Grann is now in the same category for me.

Killers of the Flower Moon left me jaw-dropped, and this week’s post kicks off with the central story in his book, The Wager, a seaborne tale that would read like a fish story if it wasn’t true.

Ultimately, we’re exploring whether or not wealth management is “wicked” or “kind.” It’ll make more sense, especially when you see how Daniel Kahneman used the very business of financial advice as his prime example on the topic.

Meanwhile, our investment insider, Tony Welch, discusses the Challenges of Extraordinary Expectations in this Weekly Market Update.

Thanks for spending a few moments of your weekend with us!

Tim

Tim Maurer, CFP®, RLP®

Partner

SIGNATUREFD

In this Net Worthwhile® Weekly you'll find:

• Financial LIFE Planning:

  • The Wickedness Of Wealth Management

• Quote O' The Week:

  • Voltaire

• Weekly Market Update:

  • The Challenge of Extraordinary Expectations

Financial LIFE Planning

The Wickedness Of Wealth Management

A ghost ship, a lost cure, and why financial planning is a craft—not a formula.

Commodore George Anson left England in 1740 with around 1,854 men on six warships hunting Spanish treasure ships. I know, it sounds more like the set-up for the next installment of Pirates of the Caribbean, but it’s a true story—or series of unbelievable stories, really. And like so many from this era, it’s a mostly tragic tale.

This is because of the 1,854 men who reportedly started on the mission, roughly 188 survived. And while the tale, as told in David Grann’s page-turner, The Wager, absolutely includes shipwreck, battles, pirates, mutiny, (mostly) uninhabited islands and the like, it’s estimated that only four men—four—lost their lives at the hands of an enemy. For the remainder, it was exposure, shipwreck, and disease.

One disease, in particular, that is thought to have taken the lives of roughly 1,000 of the 1,854, was scurvy. TBH, having only ever heard the word uttered by fictional pirates in the movies, I may have thought scurvy itself was imagined, but it was—is—very real. What was imagined, however, were its causes: laziness, idleness, melancholy, homesickness, nostalgia, damp air, infection, spoiled food, an overabundance of salt, copper poisoning, not to mention “putrefaction inside the body,” were all proposed causes of this disease.

And the effects of the disease were downright ghostly, adding to its mystique and terror. What might start as fatigue and lethargy became easy bruising, joint and bone pain and swelling, and ultimately, the body basically fell apart. Loose teeth, spongy gums, and old flesh wounds and even bone breaks effectively reappearing.

That’s because scurvy is, in reality, a collagen collapse—caused by a lack of Vitamin C. That’s why ships beset with scurvy that came into tropical ports experienced seemingly miraculous healings when they traded with the locals for the ultimate cure: fruit.

Brutal, right? Maybe even wicked.

What are the rules of the game?

“Wicked” is the term that Robin Hogarth originated and David Epstein used in his book, Range, to differentiate from the term “kind.” They’re describing two different types of decision-making environments.

Kind environments involve patterns that “…repeat over and over, and feedback is extremely accurate and usually very rapid,” according to Epstein. Wicked environments, in contrast, involve situations in which “the rules of the game are often unclear or incomplete,” where “there may or may not be repetitive patterns and they may not be obvious, and feedback is often delayed, inaccurate, or both.”

The particular danger observed in wicked environments was that “experience had not helped at all. Even worse, it frequently bred confidence but not skill.” That’s why the logs from the Wager read almost laughably in 2026, as the captain posited many false claims about the origin of the scurvy outbreak that turned his boat into a literal ghost ship.

Robin Hogarth’s example is memorable: much of the world, he says, is “Martian tennis.” “You can see the players on a court with balls and rackets, but nobody has shared the rules. It is up to you to derive them, and they are subject to change without notice.”

An “Adversarial Collaboration”

In 2009, one of the regular heroes of this newsletter, Daniel Kahneman, entered into a debate with the American research psychologist, Gary Klein, who pioneered the study of how people actually make decisions under real-world time pressure and uncertainty, beyond the lab. A skeptic of Klein’s work, Kahneman referred to it openly as an “adversarial collaboration.”

Klein studied experts whose gut proved reliable while Kahneman focused on those whose gut betrayed them—and what they ultimately determined is where this whole story transforms from interesting to applicable:

They agreed that intuition can be trusted in kind environments but should be distrusted in wicked ones.

So which is which? (I’m glad you asked.)

The Firefighter Versus The Stockpicker

Klein created the RPD—Recognition-Primed Decision—framework, and his chief example was an experienced firefighter, where an apparent “sixth sense,” hard-earned by years of practice, enables the first responder to arrive at an apparent gut feeling that is actually well-informed intuition. Despite its brutality, the fire is, in this example, a kind environment—because fires obey physics, feedback is immediate, and patterns repeat.

What, then, was the wicked example that Kahneman used to counter? Stockpickers.

Kahneman was asked to consult an investment firm and looked at 25 anonymous stock pickers and the selections they made to buy and sell over the course of eight years. He took a surprisingly simple approach, computing the correlation of each picker’s ranking from one year to the next in order to determine if any of them were consistently good. The result?

The average correlation was essentially zero.

“The results resembled what you would expect from a dice-rolling contest, not a game of skill,” Kahneman said, concluding that the firm, which paid bonuses based on that annual performance, “was rewarding luck as if it were skill.”

He further concluded something that those of us who’ve been in the financial industry certainly sense: that “the illusion of skill is not only an individual aberration; it is deeply ingrained in the culture of the industry.”

Need further proof? Turn to virtually any print or online financial publication. Perhaps the question of why this illusion of skill has so effectively permeated the industry and perpetuated well beyond discoveries to the contrary is an interesting post for a different day, but for now, let’s conclude with an examination of the inherent wickedness of wealth management.

Why is wealth management so wicked?

It might be easier to answer how wealth management is not wicked, but let’s be sure to substantiate the claim of this post first:

• Investment planning: Building on Kahneman’s hypothesis, we’re standing on solid evidence-based ground when we say that investors generally beat stock pickers, investments generally beat the very investors that hold them, and less active investments typically beat their more active counterparts.

• Insurance planning: Here, we have some of the most actuarial evidence of any domain in financial planning, but none of it matters in the face of a client who “just doesn’t like talking about death.” Or a disabling injury, or a long-term health care event.

• Tax planning: Plenty of information at our fingertips, but any and all of those rules are subject to change at the whim of a single politician.

• Estate planning: What does it even mean to win this game? Is it leaving so much that your heirs don’t have to work—or dying with zero?

• Retirement planning: The 4% rule (or 5%, or 3%) may be an oversimplification, but a complex Monte Carlo simulation built on a host of uncontrollable factors likely risks “complexifying.”

And let’s not forget that each of these oft-changing, multi-dimensional, individual pillars of personal finance are rarely operating in isolation. Most life decisions have implications in multiple of the above categories, further changing the dynamics of each.

It’s like in wealth management, we’re all playing games of 4D chess that regularly interact with other people’s games. Indeed, the wickedness of wealth management is rooted simply in its inherent and compounding humanity.

But the good news is that doesn’t mean we’re helpless or that the practice is pointless. In fact, I think it presents the very best case to be made for working with a financial advisor—and it’s why this financial advisor even uses his own financial advisor.

The 180-Year Delay In The Cure For Scurvy

The tragedy of The Wager happened in 1741. In 1747, James Lind ran one of the first controlled clinical trials in history aboard the HMS Salisbury. He gave 12 scurvy-stricken sailors, broken into six pairs, six different remedies. Only the pair given oranges and a lemon recovered—and the “cure” became a reality when Lind published A Treatise of the Scurvy in 1753.

The problem was that they proved correlation, but they didn’t really understand the cause. So, in the 1860s, a swap was made: Mediterranean lemons for West Indian limes—which have about 1/4 of the Vitamin C. Then, the lime juice was filtered through copper piping and exposed to air, which destroyed the little Vitamin C that remained. And the cure was incorrectly diagnosed as ineffective—for about another 70 years. And in all, it was about 180 years from the time that Lind correctly identified the cure until the world finally understood why it worked.

Fortunately, we don’t have to wait that long to find the wealth management industry solution. No, we don’t know how everything will turn out—and yes, there will be new evidence that comes to light that disconfirms previously held beliefs. (Remember when we were allowed to think that having a glass of red wine a day was actually good for us?)

And that’s because financial planning is not an endlessly complex equation for which we’re trying to solve. It’s not, in the parlance of this article’s research, kind. Instead, it’s wicked. It’s an unfolding story, an ongoing conversation. It’s a relationship that must be tended, a craft that will always be honed—one where even our errors can become assets, if we let them.

Quote O' The Week

Voltaire (1694–1778) — pen name of François-Marie Arouet — was the sharpest wit of the French Enlightenment: philosopher, playwright, and satirist, author of Candide, and by some counts the writer of 2,000-plus books and pamphlets and roughly 20,000 letters. He turned reason and ridicule into weapons against dogma, intolerance, and tyranny — which got him beaten, twice thrown in the Bastille, and exiled to England. His rallying cry against fanaticism was "Écrasez l'infâme" ("crush the infamous thing"), yet he also traded flattering letters with kings and princes when it served him — including the very 1767 letter this week's quote comes from. Equal parts gadfly and celebrity, he made doubt itself fashionable.

Weekly Market Update

Markets go up and down, and the ones we tracked did so this week:

• - 0.61% .SPX (500 U.S. large companies)

• + 0.08% IWD (U.S. large value companies)

• - 0.98% IWM (U.S. small companies)

• + 0.41% IWN (U.S. small value companies)

• + 0.75% EFV (International value companies)

• - 0.19% SCZ (International small companies)

• - 0.61% VGIT (U.S. intermediate-term Treasury bonds

The Challenge of Extraordinary Expectations

Contributed by Tony Welch, CFA®, CFP®, CMT, Chief Investment Officer, SignatureFD

Second quarter earnings season has gotten off to an incredible start. According to WisdomTree, the first 128 S&P 500 companies to report have delivered earnings growth of nearly 25% on sales growth above 13%. At this point in the economic cycle, that’s remarkable. History, however, offers an interesting reminder.

The chart below shows that periods of earnings growth above 20% have actually produced some of the market’s weakest subsequent returns. That seems backward until you consider what stock prices actually discount. Investors typically anticipate strong earnings well before they arrive. By the time earnings growth reaches extraordinary levels, expectations are often equally extraordinary, leaving less room for positive surprises.

Importantly, this doesn’t necessarily signal trouble ahead. It simply suggests that the next leg of the bull market may rely less on valuation expansion and more on companies continuing to deliver on already lofty expectations. Strong earnings remain supportive, but the hurdle gets higher as optimism rises.

Bottom Line: Exceptional earnings are exactly what investors want to see. The challenge is that markets often celebrate the anticipation of great earnings more than the confirmation of them.

Chart O’ The Week

The Message from Our Indicators

Our indicators continue to paint a constructive picture of the economy and markets. Initial jobless claims recently fell to their lowest level since 1969, while leading economic indicators remain consistent with continued expansion rather than recession. Credit conditions are healthy, market breadth remains supportive, and higher long-term interest rates have yet to meaningfully disrupt financial conditions.

That does not mean the path forward will be smooth. The encouraging decline in June inflation was measured before oil prices rallied sharply in July amid renewed tensions with Iran. Petroleum product inventories remain tight, global refining capacity has been disrupted, and refining margins have risen sharply. These conditions increase the risk that energy prices reverse some of June’s inflation improvement and make upcoming inflation reports more volatile.

For now, we view this primarily as a potential supply shock rather than evidence of an overheating economy. Still, persistent pressure from oil could keep inflation expectations elevated, limit the Federal Reserve’s flexibility, and make it harder for already-high stock valuations to expand. Combined with elevated investor optimism and record margin debt, that may limit market upside or produce further consolidation over the coming weeks and months.

Bottom Line: The weight of the evidence remains constructive, supported by solid economic growth, strong earnings, and healthy market fundamentals. However, volatile oil prices and a less predictable inflation outlook may make the next phase of the bull market more uneven and increasingly dependent on continued earnings growth rather than higher valuations.

What book(s) are you reading this weekend?

Tim

The very time I set aside to write weekly was the same as the availability for our mechanic to complete the mandatory renewal of the brakes on my wife’s car. So, instead of my comfy home office with the personally cultivated writing playlist ringing out, I was tapping out this week’s Financial LIFE Planning post in the mechanic’s waiting room with the TV blaring and an implausibly oblivious hard charger insistent on conducting his conference call on speakerphone.

Life imitating art, I suppose. You’ll be the judge, and I hope you’ll let me know if this Financial LIFE Planning post connects with you.

And Tony Welch answers the question, “Are profit margins the market’s quiet superpower?” in this Weekly Market Update.

Tim

Tim Maurer, CFP®, RLP®

Partner

SIGNATUREFD

In this Net Worthwhile® Weekly you'll find:

• Financial LIFE Planning:

  • Don’t Wait To Feel Inspired

• Quote O' The Week:

  • Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

• Weekly Market Update:

  • Are Profit Margins The Market's Quiet Superpower?

Financial LIFE Planning

Don’t Wait To Feel Inspired

Stravinsky, Creative Constraints, and the Counterintuitive Path to Financial Freedom

Imagine for a moment that you’re the most famous living musician in the world, but the critics haven’t been kind to your work for years, you’ve lost the fortune you once had, and you’re recovering from your own bout with tuberculosis, the same disease that just claimed the lives of your daughter, spouse, and mother, all within the course of seven short months. And you’ve been invited to chair a series of lectures at Harvard.

Igor Stravinsky could claim this narrative, as he sailed solo from war-torn Europe to the United States in September of 1939. As the Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry, he was the first composer ever appointed to this prestigious post for the 1939-40 academic year at Harvard.

But from where could Stravinsky possibly derive the inspiration for his message? Or anything at all?

Fortunately, for him (and for us), it was a philosophy that had driven his work for many years, and it’s a philosophy that we may apply in our own lives—and financial planning—if we’re willing to address the discomfort and embrace the constraints we’ll inevitably face.

But first, let’s take a look at Stravinsky’s philosophy and why it was so counterintuitive, especially for an artist.

Inspiration: Chicken Or Egg?

“Most music-lovers believe that what sets the composer’s creative imagination in motion is a certain emotive disturbance generally designated by the name of inspiration... I simply maintain that inspiration is in no way a prescribed condition of the creative act, but rather a manifestation that is chronologically secondary.”

Stravinsky certainly seems to think that inspiration follows the creative act—it doesn’t precede it. But rather than making a defense or critique of his claim, let’s consider: How could we apply this notion beneficially in our own lives—or even more concretely, in our financial plans?

For one, we have a tendency to apply certain labels to ourselves—some consciously while others reside below the surface, but no less powerfully. We may label ourselves “bad with money” or “a spender.” We may consider ourselves a good investor, thereby blessing even our poor decisions, or a bad investor, living down to our diminutive standard.

But while we as humans are incredibly complex, disciplines like good budgeting or sound investing are not opaque; nor do they require an epiphany to do them effectively. We can simply choose to do these things—or make the call to get the help we need—and thereby build the habits that can lead to a balanced budget and a promising portfolio without an ounce of emotional inspiration.

Consider the words of the all-time sage, C. S. Lewis, that I believe apply as much in math as they do in metaphysics: “Very often the only way to get a quality in reality is to start behaving as if you had it already.”

What if, for example, we’d like to be a friendlier person?

“When you are not feeling particularly friendly but know you ought to be, the best thing you can do, very often, is to put on a friendly manner and behave as if you were a nicer person than you actually are. And in a few minutes, as we have all noticed, you will be really feeling friendlier than you were.”

Helpful (And Hurtful) Constraints

But we are quick to quote a long list of excuses—reasons we can’t do something we know we should and have expressed we want to do—when it comes to taking the often uncomfortable action required to achieve our desired result, aren’t we?

I just don’t have the time. It runs in my family. I’m not (fill-in-the-blank) enough. I’ll do it when…

But for Stravinsky, it was precisely these constraints—this resistance—that he used as the very foundation for his creativity:

“In art as in everything else, one can build only upon a resisting foundation: whatever constantly gives way to pressure, constantly renders movement impossible. My freedom thus consists in my moving about within the narrow frame that I have assigned myself for each one of my undertakings.”

And just as we begin to voice how ridiculous this seems to sound, he interrupts and doubles down:

“I shall go even further: my freedom will be so much the greater and more meaningful the more narrowly I limit my field of action and the more I surround myself with obstacles. Whatever diminishes constraint, diminishes strength. The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one’s self of the chains that shackle the spirit.”

OK, OK, we get it! And how can we use this logic within our financial planning? How, precisely, can constraints—even self-imposed constraints—lead to greater freedom? Well…

• Spending less than we earn delivers us from the bondage of consumer debt.

• Setting aside free cash flow for a specific purpose—say, a monthly date night with your boo—helps fund our priorities.

• Deferring a modicum of enjoyable spending today enables us to sustain ourselves in the future.

• Giving a portion of our income or assets to those who have less tends to make us feel like we have more.

• Establishing an “investment policy statement” pre-decides how we’ll respond to certain stimuli absent the emotion that may lead to an unwelcome impulse.

But to be clear, research has found that not all constraints are equal—or inspirational—and some can actually suppress our creativity and the joy to be derived from it. For example, in the work she did on the social psychology of creativity, Teresa Amabile found the following:

• People produce less creative work when they know they’re being watched while doing it.

• Simply knowing that your work will be judged, even before the judgment has happened, can limit creativity.

• And working toward an externally imposed reward, rather than an intrinsic interest, can also reduce creativity.

In short, the natural constraints of life—and the constraints that we choose to impose on ourselves—can be helpful, while constraints that function as social control can be hurtful.

What If We Make A Mistake?

But what about accidents? What if we make a mistake? How can we avoid being derailed in these instances?

“One does not contrive an accident: one observes it to draw inspiration therefrom,” Stravinsky said. “An accident is perhaps the only thing that really inspires us.”

He speaks of these accidents with such reverence that it makes me wonder if he’s not invoking a line that a mentor of mine was fond of saying as a way of inspiring us to find the sacred amidst the mundane: “You go no place by accident.”

And regardless of whether or not your belief system aligns with my mentor, or Stravinsky, is it not true that the unexpected could just be viewed as opportunities for improvisation? Opportunities to get more creative?

But I’m Not An Artist

But much in the same way that we may find it a bit out of touch when someone who is independently wealthy offers a lesson on contentment to those who are struggling just to get by, can we really expect one of the world’s greatest composers to lecture us on creativity? Isn’t it easier for Stravinsky to make this claim?

I’m not so sure. Remember where our story started. Though still celebrated worldwide, he’d lost virtually everything—materially and personally—when he gave these lectures. And far from espousing a condescending form of creativity that was the domain of an elect few, he actually had harsh words for those who might be inclined to romanticize the artist:

“The word artist which, as it is most generally understood today, bestows on its bearer the highest intellectual prestige, the privilege of being accepted as a pure mind—this pretentious term is in my view entirely incompatible with the role of the homo faber.”

“Homo faber”—man the maker, the fashioner, the smith, the craftsperson. Great art, ingenuity, creativity—even wealth—were never the domain of an inspired elite. They belong to the maker: anyone willing to do the work and to fashion a life from the accidents, happy and unhappy, that come our way. The inspiration follows.

Quote O' The Week

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840–1893) gave the world Swan Lake, The Nutcracker, and his heartbreaking final symphony, the "Pathétique." He trained for the civil service and clerked in the Ministry of Justice before walking away to bet his life on music. For all the Romantic sweep of that music, he worked like a craftsman—at his desk nearly every day, muse or no muse. He wrote the line below in an 1878 letter to his patron.

Weekly Market Update

Markets were as mixed as they’ve been in a minute, and Tony gives us the scoop in the Weekly Market Update below:

• - 1.55% .SPX (500 U.S. large companies)

• + 0.48% IWD (U.S. large value companies)

• - 0.66% IWM (U.S. small companies)

• + 1.08% IWN (U.S. small value companies)

• + 0.09% EFV (International value companies)

• - 1.08% SCZ (International small companies)

• + 0.20% VGIT (U.S. intermediate-term Treasury bonds

Are Profit Margins The Market's Quiet Superpower?

Contributed by Tony Welch, CFA®, CFP®, CMT, Chief Investment Officer, SignatureFD

For all the attention on interest rates, tariffs, and geopolitics, one of the biggest drivers of this bull market has been quietly hiding in plain sight: record corporate profit margins. While sales growth has remained healthy, companies have become dramatically more efficient at turning each dollar of revenue into earnings. That helps explain why corporate profits have continued to outpace expectations and why equity markets have been able to support higher valuations.

The obvious question is whether these margins are sustainable. We believe the answer depends less on pricing power and more on productivity. Over the past two years, companies have invested heavily in artificial intelligence, automation, and operational efficiency. The next phase of the AI story isn’t simply building more infrastructure; it is helping businesses produce more with the same workforce. If those productivity gains materialize, today’s elevated margins could prove more durable than many expect. That said, though higher margins can command a higher valuation, they don’t justify paying any price at all for stocks. Even after accounting for today’s profitability, valuation measures still suggest investors are pricing in a healthy amount of optimism, which could explain the stall in the uptrend over the past six weeks.

Chart O’ The Week

The Message from Our Indicators

This week’s data reinforced the picture our indicators have been painting for several months. Inflation surprised to the downside as lower energy prices weighed on both consumer and producer prices, while retail sales continued to show that consumer demand remains resilient. Taken together, we believe the economy continues to look more like a slowing expansion than one approaching recession.

Our investment indicators remain constructive, but we’re also mindful of where we are in the market cycle. Breadth remains healthy despite the market taking a well-deserved pause after its powerful spring rally, suggesting that consolidation, not deterioration, is the more likely interpretation. Meanwhile, earnings season becomes increasingly important from here. Markets have already rewarded companies benefiting from the AI investment cycle. The next challenge will be proving that those investments are translating into broader earnings growth across the economy.

We continue to favor a disciplined, fully invested approach. We believe the backdrop of moderating inflation, resilient economic activity, and improving productivity remains supportive for long-term investors, even if markets experience periods of consolidation along the way.

Disciplined or not, I hope you have a great weekend!

Tim

We’re boldly diving into the deep end this week, as we feature a counterintuitive insight for the third and final time from Jim Collins’ most recent book, What To Make Of A Life.

And in this case, we’re really featuring Collins’ wife’s insight, not his own, because it was Joanne Ernst who encouraged Jim to stop worrying about the notion of legacy. In this week’s post, we’ll walk through their logic and some of the evidence to support it—while leaving you with a highly practical suggestion that could change the way you think about work and money, life and death.

And Tony’s feeling positive this week, substantiating the question, “Is the good news getting even better?” in this week’s Weekly Market Update.

Thanks for joining us!

Tim

Tim Maurer, CFP®, RLP®

Partner

SIGNATUREFD

In this Net Worthwhile® Weekly you'll find:

• Financial LIFE Planning:

  • The Dangerous Lure Of Legacy

• Quote O' The Week:

  • Marcus Aurelius

• Weekly Market Update:

  • Good News Getting Even Better?

Financial LIFE Planning

The Dangerous Lure Of Legacy

You Can Plan An Estate, But Not A Legacy

Legacy is a word that has gotten a lot of play in the wealth management space, and for good reason. Especially when we differentiate the word “legacy” from the word “estate,” we begin to tap into what I believe is the real essence of the best financial planning.

This is because an estate is something that has a clear legal definition—it’s what we call all your stuff left behind when you leave this earth. It’s whatever assets were in your name once there is no breath remaining in your lungs. An estate is, by definition, lifeless.

A legacy, however, is something quite different. I think of it as the impression that we leave on this earth once we’re gone. It’s the fragrance that remains despite our absence, and unlike the shirt left behind by your lover, the scent of the strongest legacies may endure indefinitely, and even grow over time.

Just think for a moment of Mozart, who, though certainly recognized for his brilliance during life, died in debt and was buried in a common grave. Edgar Allan Poe died shamefully destitute. And Vincent van Gogh famously died with scarcely a modicum of fame during his tumultuous, shortened life.

Yes, one’s assets may certainly be part of our legacies—how we deployed those assets during life and, surely, how they are handled after our passing. Therefore, we might consider the creation of a lasting legacy one of the worthiest of all goals, but how would we do that? And is it even possible?

The Litmus Test

Jim Collins—the legendary author of Good To Great and Built To Last (and from whom I borrowed the title of this post)—used to think so, but his wife convinced him otherwise. And she was the clear OG high achiever in their household.

In fact, before he ever became the good-to-great guy, Jim Collins quit his job at Hewlett-Packard to support the personal ambitions of his wife, Joanne Ernst. She was, without an ounce of hyperbole, one of the world’s greatest endurance athletes and the winner of the 1985 Hawaii Ironman Triathlon World Championship. She completed the 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike, followed by a 26.2-mile run, in 10:25:22, and was named Triathlete of the Year by Triathlon magazine in the same year. Truly a “power couple” if we’ve ever seen one.

Many years later, however, as Collins found himself regularly asked some version of the questions, “What do you want your legacy to be?” and “What do you want to be remembered for?”, he was struggling with an answer. So he went to Joanne and asked her.

Her response, as chronicled in Collins’ newest book, What To Make Of A Life, was, “It’s a waste of time to think about your legacy or how you want to be remembered. It’s self-centric and distracts from doing what’s right in front of you. Besides, you won’t be here to enjoy it anyway.”

This starkly different perspective struck Collins as the right, if counterintuitive, answer, and so he began using it as one of the litmus tests for those he researched in the book, written to illuminate the traits and decisions of those who appear to have lived the most meaningful and fulfilling lives.

If Collins and Ernst are right—and I think they are—that means that a legacy worth leaving is not so much a life goal as a byproduct of a life well lived. Here’s their final conclusion:

“What is so striking in the vast mountain of materials we collected in this study is how little the people spoke or wrote about ‘legacy’ or how they wanted to be remembered after they were gone. Yes, many of them made a lasting impact on the world they touched, but they did so by honoring the responsibilities they chose, by doing the work that lay right in front of them.”

Byproducts Masquerading As Goals

Legacy is in good company because there are several other of the most attractive traits and features of the good life that are byproducts masquerading as goals. In many cases, in fact, the direct pursuit of these aspirations is ironically counterproductive.

• Love: Neediness tends to repel more than endear.

• Respect: The more we demand it, the less deserving we appear.

• Sleep: Sleep scientists treat “sleep effort” as a cause of insomnia.

• Being Interesting: Dale Carnegie dropped this mic: “To be interesting, be interested.”

• Humility: It evaporates the moment you notice you have it. Echoing C. S. Lewis, author Tim Keller wrote that the essence of humility “…is not thinking more of myself or thinking less of myself, it is thinking of myself less.”

Ensue, Don’t Pursue

And the granddaddies of them all—happiness and success—are perhaps the most elusive. Consider Viktor Frankl’s powerful instruction that could, I submit, provide us with a to-do to accompany our not-to-dos:

”Don’t aim at success—the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue…as the unintended side-effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself.”

Combining both Collins’ and Frankl’s observations gives us, I believe, a short but powerful playbook on how to be successful and happy—and to leave a meaningful legacy:

Don’t pursue happiness (with all deference to Thomas Jefferson), success, or the creation of a legacy. Instead, discern your encodings—the durable, intrinsic capacities built into your person, awaiting discovery through the experiences of life—and deploy those encodings in pursuit of causes that are greater than yourself.

An estate can be planned and built, but a legacy cannot. It can’t be pursued—it must ensue. And what greater goal could we have, as financial advisors, than to guide our clients on this journey?

Quote O' The Week

Marcus Aurelius (121–180 AD) was Roman emperor for nearly two decades and the last of the "Five Good Emperors" — the most powerful man in the world, who spent his evenings writing philosophical notes to himself by lamplight on military campaign. Those private reflections, never intended for another soul's eyes, survived as Meditations, one of the most enduring works of practical wisdom ever written. The man who warned against chasing posthumous fame achieved perhaps history's greatest example of it: not by pursuing a legacy, but by doing the work — on himself — that lay right in front of him.

Weekly Market Update

The S&P 500 was up this week, but that was about it. Regardless, Tony’s humming a happy tune into this weekend. See why below:

• + 1.23% .SPX (500 U.S. large companies)

• + 0.01% IWD (U.S. large value companies)

• - 0.53% IWM (U.S. small companies)

• - 0.61% IWN (U.S. small value companies)

• + 0.66% EFV (International value companies)

• - 0.11% SCZ (International small companies)

• - 0.41% VGIT (U.S. intermediate-term Treasury bonds

Good News Getting Better?

Contributed by Tony Welch, CFA®, CFP®, CMT, Chief Investment Officer, SignatureFD

One of Wall Street’s unwritten rules is that analysts almost always lower earnings estimates as a quarter progresses. Companies provide cautious guidance, unexpected challenges arise, and expectations naturally drift lower. In fact, over the past 20 years, quarterly earnings estimates have declined by an average of more than 4% during the course of a quarter. This quarter has been anything but typical.

Instead of cutting estimates, analysts raised their earnings expectations for S&P 500 companies by 3.4%, marking the largest upward revision during a quarter since 2021. Even more impressive, earnings estimates increased across multiple sectors rather than being confined to just a handful of companies.

Markets ultimately follow earnings. While stock prices can certainly get ahead of themselves over short periods, long-term returns are driven by the ability of businesses to grow profits. Thus far, earnings and earnings expectations have delivered.

That doesn’t eliminate risk. Valuations remain above historical averages, and investor expectations have risen alongside the market. But stronger fundamentals give this rally a sturdy foundation.

Chart O’ The Week

The Message from Our Indicators

Our indicators remain constructive, though with a healthy appreciation for the risks that naturally accompany a strong market advance.

As noted above, fundamentals continue to provide the strongest support. Corporate earnings expectations have improved meaningfully in recent months, global economic activity remains resilient, and recession risks continue to appear lower than many feared earlier this year. The story is gradually shifting from enthusiasm surrounding artificial intelligence investment to the more important question of whether those investments begin translating into broader productivity and earnings growth across the economy. Thus far, the evidence is encouraging.

Technical trends also remain favorable. Markets continue to make higher highs and higher lows, with leadership gradually broadening beyond the largest technology companies. Healthy trends don’t guarantee higher prices tomorrow, but history suggests they deserve the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise.

Sentiment, however, has become more optimistic. That’s understandable after a strong rally, but optimism also means expectations are higher. Investors will likely become less forgiving of disappointments during the upcoming earnings season, making company guidance just as important as the headline results.

Taken together, our indicators continue to support the bull market in stocks. While we expect periods of volatility along the way, we continue to believe that the combination of improving fundamentals and favorable market trends provides a constructive backdrop for long-term investors.

And on that good note, have a great rest of your weekend!

Tim

It naturally leads to those stomach-turning questions:

• Am I different (enough)?

• Am I special (enough)?

• Am I talented (enough)?

• Am I…enough?

We want to say something unique, or at least uniquely. We want to be interesting. And it’s not just a modern phenomenon. The legendary author and business and leadership consultant, Dale Carnegie, gave us the antidote in his 1936 classic, How To Win Friends And Influence People. Now, we have the chance to put it into practice 90 years later.

If you’re a financial advisor, I’m talking directly to you—but I believe this is wisdom that applies in just about every professional role and most personal roles we inhabit in life.

Thanks for joining us!

BTW, there won’t be an edition of The Net Worthwhile Weekly published next weekend, but Tony and I hope you and yours have a fantastic and safe 4th of July weekend!

Tim Maurer, CFP®, RLP®

Partner

SIGNATUREFD

In this Net Worthwhile® Weekly you'll find:

• Financial LIFE Planning:

  • Advisors: Stop Trying To Be Interesting

• Quote O' The Week:

  • Simone Weil

• Weekly Market Update:

  • Labor Market Keeps The Expansion Intact

Financial LIFE Planning

Advisors: Stop Trying To Be Interesting

Carnegie figured it out in 1936. Now it’s our chance.

In the business/leadership/personal-/professional-development classic (that I submit contained 95% of all the best ideas in this genre to date), How To Win Friends And Influence People, the OG business consultant, Dale Carnegie, provides us with the antidote to the above challenge:

“To be interesting, be interested.”

He said that in 1936. The book was an overnight sensation, selling 70,000 copies in the first three weeks—eventually 30 million worldwide—and it’s included in the Library of Congress list of “Books That Shaped America” and hailed as “the progenitor of all self-help books.” (So yes, if this one hasn’t made it into your personal library yet and you’re interested in personal and professional development, this could be your next purchase.)

And while Carnegie’s long-form bio may likely leaves us concluding that he, not the Dos Equis man, was the most interesting man in the world, the way he got there is a road none of us would choose. He was born dirt poor on a Missouri farm, failed at acting in New York, and ended up teaching public speaking classes at a Harlem YMCA for $2 a night. This class ultimately became the cornerstone of The Carnegie Institute of Effective Speaking and Human Relations, which, then little-known investor, Warren Buffett, claimed as one of the most important of his life.

Carnegie was not naturally charismatic and was more of a researcher than a storyteller. And he found that the most interesting people—people like Theodore Roosevelt (about whom he reportedly read more than 100 biographies), FDR, and Edison—weren’t always the most eloquent or impressive people in a room. They were the most attentive.

Carnegie found what 90 years of research has since confirmed: that we, as humans, are fundamentally interested in ourselves and that the person who honors that reality becomes the most magnetic because it’s a rarity.

The idea here isn’t to fake it—because we can sense when someone offers hollow praise—but to cultivate genuine curiosity in all of our interactions because productivity, trust, and connection (whether personally or professionally) can all rise when people feel acknowledged for their personhood, not just their productivity.

How Can We Apply This?

I believe this is a universal principle that can be aptly applied to any personal or professional relationship, but the applications within the business of financial planning and wealth management are clear, through every phase of the client experience.

Winning The Work With Prospects

Let’s start with the prospective client, who hasn’t yet committed to working with us. Evidence-based business development consultant and author, Mo Bunnell, insists that we need to fall in love with our clients’ problems, not our own solutions. “Clients feel when they’re being sold to,” Bunnell says. “And they also feel when someone’s digging in and trying to understand the problem.”

I know, your services are great, but that’s not the point. As Bunnell says:

“What’s in your big brain is unique. Your solutions are the best there is. But the client doesn’t want your broad-based knowledge that results in what feels like cookie-cutter solutions.”

It’s by falling in love with the clients’ problems and giving them the opportunity to tell you exactly what it is that inspired them to spend time with you in the first place.

• For (much) more on this topic, check out this conversation—“Sales Without The Sleaze”—I had with Mo Bunnell about his research and most recent book, Give To Grow.

But what about building credibility? Isn’t it one of the important steps in building a trusting relationship with a new client? Absolutely. But here’s the good news: You probably don’t have to worry about that. In 2026, your website, or a client referral, or a Google, ChatGPT, or Claude search, has likely already done that work for you. They wouldn’t be sitting in front of you if they didn’t already think you were credible. And guess what? If they need more information to confirm your credibility, they’ll ask you. So your job—especially at the most formative stages of a new relationship—is shockingly simple:

Let go of your desire to impress or convince, and allow yourself to be interested—or better yet, fascinated, by the person or people in front of you.

Discovery With Clients

Once we’ve earned the opportunity to serve a new client, the curiosity doesn’t stop there. In many ways, it’s just getting started. Beyond the quantitative data, the CFP Board explicitly instructs practitioners to gather qualitative information, including “the Client’s health, life expectancy, family circumstances, values, attitudes, expectations, earnings potential, risk tolerance, goals, needs, priorities, and current course of action.”

In other words, the profession’s own credentialing body has codified curiosity as a requirement. Most advisors have reduced that list to a checkbox. But we can do (much) better.

A good discoverer will identify something that sounds important to a client and go deep on that topic. A great discoverer will be even more patient. Rather than rushing to solve for the very first problem presented by a client, they may broaden their discovery. Want an example?

One of the most common and effective deepening prompts, when the time is right, is “Tell me more about…” But advisor sage, George Kinder, invites us to consider that the first thing our clients talk about in open-ended discovery may not be, and indeed often isn’t, the most important thing. They may lead with what they think they’re supposed to say to a financial advisor, and they may even be inclined to shield you from a particular point of angst that is their biggest current challenge. So, how can we create the safe space to allow them to open up?

Kinder suggests imagining that a new client (and both clients if you’re working with a couple) has a handful of marbles in their pocket(s), each one representing something that’s captured their attention, but they’re not yet sure if or how to share it with you. Your job, therefore, is to lovingly guide them to bring each idea—each marble—onto the table to allow us to consider it together. And while there will be time to go deep with “Tell me more,” it’s likely that the first step is to broaden your discovery with a different prompt: “What else?” or maybe “Anything else?”

If you employ these phrases, I think you’ll be surprised how it changes the discourse and how much more thorough your discovery will be. Instead of everyone staring at a single marble, you’ll now have four, five, or more sitting on the table to consider. And that’s when you use your well-informed intuition as an advisor to invite them to tell you more about the two or three that are likely the most important and actionable right now.

Re-Discovery With Long-Time Clients

One of the biggest challenges financial advisors have in working with long-time clients is that the magic has a tendency to fade as the excitement of a new relationship—and a new trust—has been forged. We’re all tempted to fall into the rut of normalcy, and worse yet, minimize the whole of your relationship to periodic investment performance.

But people don’t cease to be interesting just because you’ve worked with them for a long time. Everything in the business of personal finance is always changing. Yes, there are financial factors—tax and estate law changes, retirement plan contributions and phase-out limits, actuarial updates to insurance products, etc.—but more importantly, we are always changing as humans. Yes, the features and factors in our lives are always changing, but so too is our posture toward each of them.

Our tolerance toward investment risk changes. Our perspective on retirement changes. Our families grow and compound, as do the challenges and opportunities that each of us face. So, we need not hunt for a needle in a haystack to find new ways to remain interested in our clients, because life, work, and money are always in flux.

Therefore, I recommend regular re-discovery, and there are a few ways we can do this:

First, as a matter of practice, we can simply add into our vernacular at the beginning of every client interaction: “We’ve got a couple things on our agenda to discuss, but what’s most important to us is what’s most important to you—so what’s on your agenda today?” And if that, alone, doesn’t elicit new information, you might tack on, “And have there been any major changes, in life or your financial situation, since we last got together?”

Second, I like to proactively move beyond this general rhythm of curiosity and conduct a more formal re-discovery every few years. You might tee it up like this, and I recommend doing this before you’re actually sitting down to meet with the client, so that it doesn’t come as a surprise:

“You may remember when we first met, we walked through a discussion about what’s most important to you in life in order to ensure our financial planning recommendations are supporting your top priorities. Do you mind if we dedicate a portion of our next meeting to getting caught up on that front?”

Cue whatever method you use for qualitative discovery to re-engage your client on that level. (And if you don’t have a method for qualitative discovery…let’s talk. Seriously.)

And thirdly, there are times where we respond reactively to a situation that a client brings to us. It could be that a client reaches out to let you know about a major life transition or event that has just presented itself—a new marriage, divorce, birth, death, disability, business bought or sold, considering a move, etc.—or it could be that they are simply aware enough to notice that they have changed internally to some external stimuli (like market volatility or political turmoil). Regardless of the circumstances, this offers us a fresh, new opportunity to activate our interest with our clients and deepen our relationship.

AI Insurance?

Are you one of the wise advisors currently asking yourself the question, “Could AI replace me?” Well, if all you do is set up and balance portfolios, calculate tax liabilities and insurance needs, or determine reasonable probabilities of not running out of money in retirement, I personally think you should be worried.

But if you’re in the business of getting to know people—of really getting to know people—and then sharing your hard-earned wisdom at the moments in life when people are navigating life’s biggest decisions and most impactful moments? If this is how you operate, not only do I think you have little to worry about with the advent of AI, I believe you can helpfully use AI to further cultivate your curiosity and deepen your relational connections with clients.

Why Is This So Hard?

But why is it so hard to be naturally interested? Are we bad or selfish people when all we really want is an opening to talk more about ourselves?

Nope. You’re just human. We have a desire that I believe to be innate—to be truly known—that manifests itself in a myriad of different ways, some of which are incredible relationship builders (like wisely-timed vulnerability).

Author Parker Palmer puts it this way:

“The human soul doesn’t want to be advised or fixed or saved. It simply wants to be witnessed—to be seen, heard, and companioned exactly as it is.”

Therefore, it’s our own desire to be interesting—or known, really—that fuels our capacity to know and be interested.

You’re not suppressing your own needs when you turn your curiosity outward. You know what it feels like to want to be seen, and that knowing makes you a better asker. A better listener. A better advisor.

And with all that AI is capable of handling in the calculative aspects of our work, there’s never been a better time for us to double- and triple-down on the thing that it will never be able to do.

Quote O' The Week

Simone Weil (1909–1943) was a French philosopher, mystic, and political activist who spent her brief life in deliberate solidarity with suffering—working factory shifts alongside laborers, fighting in the Spanish Civil War, and voluntarily restricting her own food to match the rations of occupied France. A prodigy who mastered ancient Greek as a teenager and studied at one of France's most elite institutions, she was nevertheless drawn away from the academy and toward the margins.

Her writing—spanning philosophy, politics, and theology—was animated by a single preoccupation: What does it mean to truly pay attention? To Weil, attention wasn't passive. It was the most demanding act a human being could perform, and the most generous. She died of tuberculosis at 34, largely unknown. Albert Camus, who later edited her collected works, called her "the only great spirit of our time." She never finished a book. Everything she left behind was notebooks, letters, and essays—which is part of what makes her so quotable, and so hard to forget.

Weekly Market Update

The S&P 500 was down this week, but the NASDAQ took the real beating at down 4.6% this week. Stocks were otherwise mixed, though, as small and value companies were still at or near 52-week highs:

• - 1.95% .SPX (500 U.S. large companies)

• + 0.24% IWD (U.S. large value companies)

• + 1.43% IWM (U.S. small companies)

• + 2.10% IWN (U.S. small value companies)

• - 0.71% EFV (International value companies)

• - 1.72% SCZ (International small companies)

• + 0.54% VGIT (U.S. intermediate-term Treasury bonds

Labor Market Keeps the Expansion on Track

Contributed by Nick Amat, CFA®, CAIA, Senior Portfolio Designer, SignatureFD

If there is one number today that we believe captures the health of the economy in plain terms, it is jobs. When people are working, they keep spending, businesses keep investing, and the economy keeps moving forward. That is why we keep a close eye on weekly unemployment claims, essentially a real-time measure of how many people are losing their jobs and filing for benefits. The chart below shows that figure has stayed low and remarkably steady, hovering in the same narrow range it has occupied for several years.

The reason this matters to you as an investor is simple. The events that typically end economic expansions and bull markets are often preceded by a meaningful rise in layoffs. We are not seeing that. Companies are holding onto their workers, and a steady paycheck for millions of households is what continues to support consumer spending, which makes up the majority of the U.S. economy. We believe a calm, flat line on this chart is exactly what a healthy expansion looks like, and it is one of the clearest signs that the economy remains on solid footing today.

Chart O’ The Week

The Message from Our Indicators

This week, the message from our indicators remains broadly unchanged. The market’s underlying trend continues to be constructive, corporate fundamentals remain supportive, and the primary area deserving close attention continues to be inflation and interest rates.

The encouraging news is that the economy continues to show resilience. Corporate America remains in good shape, with earnings growing at a double-digit pace over the past year and business investment accelerating alongside them. New capital spending orders have risen more than 10%, fueled in large part by continued investment in AI and data center infrastructure. Combined with the steady labor market, we believe the evidence continues to point toward an economy that has cooled from its earlier pace but remains on solid footing.

The picture becomes more nuanced when looking at the consumer. Consumer spending has remained resilient, but households are relying more on savings than income growth to maintain that pace. The personal saving rate has fallen to roughly 3%, near its lowest level in four years. While that is not a cause for immediate concern, it is a reminder that consumer spending may be worth watching if savings continue to erode.

Inflation remains another key piece of the puzzle. The Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) Price Index, the Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of inflation, continues to run above its long-term target, reinforcing the Fed’s patient approach to monetary policy. While recent inflation pressures appear to have been influenced by higher energy prices, we believe policymakers are likely to wait for clearer evidence that inflation is moving sustainably lower before considering additional rate cuts. As a result, investors are gradually adjusting to a higher-for-longer interest rate environment than many expected at the beginning of the year.

Taken together, our indicators continue to support a constructive outlook. While the macro environment has become somewhat more challenging, it has not deteriorated enough to change our long-term view materially. We continue to believe the best response to an uncertain environment is not prediction. It is preparation. Maintaining a well-diversified portfolio built around long-term goals remains the way we navigate a wide range of economic and market outcomes.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend and the week to come!

Tim

It was written for monks. But I’ve come to believe it was also written for financial advisors—and for anyone who has climbed exactly the ladder they intended to climb, arrived exactly where they hoped to arrive, and then quietly wondered why the view feels less satisfying than they’d hoped.

So if that’s you, whether you’re a financial advisor or not, this one’s for you. And it comes with all the trimmings, a compelling Quote O’ the Week from T.S. Eliot and an enlightening Weekly Market Update after a doozy of a week from Tony Welch.

Thanks for joining us!

Tim Maurer, CFP®, RLP®

Partner

SIGNATUREFD

In this Net Worthwhile® Weekly you'll find:

• Financial LIFE Planning:

  • Avoiding Burnout As A Financial Advisor

• Quote O' The Week:

  • T. S. Eliot

• Weekly Market Update:

  • Expansion Intact

Financial LIFE Planning

Avoiding Burnout As A Financial Advisor

How A Dream Job Can Feel Like A Trap, And Ways To Get Out

I’ve noticed a phenomenon that, while still anecdotal, I’m going to claim as more than coincidental: Though it looks like nothing short of a dream job, the work of a financial advisor may predictably lead to burnout without proper attention.

There are (at least) a few reasons why this may occur:

How A Dream Job Can Feel Like A Trap

First, there is a meaningful degree of pressure or stress in the job that is undeniable. It’s hard enough for most people to manage the finances of a single household, much less scores of them. Bearing a meaningful share of the strain inherent in managing through one financial crisis, not to mention the several one is likely to endure in a career, is a lot. And that’s just one of multiple systemic factors that can lead to high stress as an advisor. What about the exponential number of individualized household stressors that are brought to the feet of a financial advisor over the course of a career?

Second, for most advisors, managing a practice also requires a meaningful degree of people management, as no great advisor (I’ve observed to date) operates as a singular entity. There are team members, each with their own challenges and opportunities, as well as firm leadership, whose job it is to impose mandates and restrictions that, however helpful or evolutionary, can materially move the proverbial cheese stewarded by an advisor. All of the above results in a collective friction that is no small effort to smooth.

And third, but certainly not finally, you may have heard, “If you’re not growing, you’re dying,” and while I do believe there are several strands of truth to be teased out in this statement, it can also be over-applied as a blunt instrument to suggest that we, as advisors, are only as good as the next thing we do. And this undermines an even deeper truth—that the effort it takes to build and maintain a sustainable financial planning practice is nothing short of enormous. And if you’re an advisor, please read this next sentence twice: While it’s an entirely valid metric to track, your value as a human, and your pursuit of this profession as a calling, has nothing to do with your “organic growth rate.”

Have To Get To

When aggregating just these three factors, you can likely begin to see how the pursuit of financial planning as a profession can absolutely lead to burnout. Yet I submit that it’s not primarily these factors that hasten that outcome. In fact, it may be precisely the above factors that make this career a true dream job for the right person. And here’s what I mean:

• We don’t have to co-steward the missions of scores of families and architect planning to support their hopes and dreams while helping protect them from both systemic and individualized risks. We get to.

• We don’t have to help grow up the next generation of financial planners through apprenticeship, mentoring, and coaching; nor do we have to work within the constraints of good leaders who support and guide us. We get to.

• And we don’t have to be an evangelistic outpost of financial wisdom in our communities, shielding our clients from an onslaught of unhelpful messaging from the outside world and creating the safe space for them to discover, discern, and direct their financial, labor, and relational capital. No, you can be very sure, we get to do that.

Indeed, nobody said being a financial advisor was going to be easy, but for the right person, this genuine helping profession that, unlike most others, tends to be quite financially rewarding itself, can and should be a dream job.

Standing On A 100-Foot Pole

So, if not for the above reasons, then why do educated, credentialed, experienced advisors burn out?

For this, we turn to the unofficial (but undeniable) poet laureate of the business world, David Whyte, borrowing from a Zen riddle first posed by Chinese masters more than a thousand years ago—and preserved in a 13th-century collection called The Gateless Gate. Here’s Whyte’s commentary, from his benchmark book, Crossing the Unknown Sea: Work as a Pilgrimage of Identity:

It seems to me that this question waits in the shadow of every successful life. A koan question for advanced Zen students is “How do you proceed from the top of a hundred-foot pole?” Once you reach a certain stage of mastery, the dangers increase exponentially. In any occupation where we have achieved a degree of competence, we imperceptibly begin to see ourselves as God’s gift to whatever world we have decided to occupy with our working bodies.

Every path, no matter how diligently we follow it, can lead to staleness and ennui. We might reach dizzying heights in our organization, occupy the top floor of any given building, or, as a zoologist, make it to the Galapagos Islands, but if we lose our horizon and the excitement of that horizon, our high office or our storied islands can seem like a gilded cage.

Thankfully, Whyte’s insight gives us a glimpse into ways we can get out of the trap and avoid burnout as an advisor.

How To Get Out Of The Trap

How do we proceed from the top of a hundred-foot pole, then? I submit it’s a career cocktail with three primary ingredients and one clear action we can take after stirring (not shaking) the mixture.

First, let’s follow Dan Sullivan’s example and go BIG: Begin in gratitude. Many of our friends, family, and even our clients, do feel genuinely trapped in their work, and they have a much stronger case to make. If necessary, return to my have to / get to trio above, but simply put, we get to help individuals and families figure out what’s most important in life and point their precious personal resources in that direction.

Second, and in the convicting words of another poet—and the first artist outside classical and jazz ever to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music, rapper Kendrick Lamar: “Sit down. Be humble.” No matter how long you’ve been in this business, how much you’ve learned, how many credentials you have, how many assets you manage, or how much money you make, the subject matter of financial planning is so deep and so wide and so ever-changing that there will always be more that you don’t know than you know. That’s why it’s a team sport and why this next ingredient is, in my humble opinion, the most important trait of any great financial advisor:

Intellectual curiosity. Those who inhabit this trait may never be bored in our business. They’ll find a way out of every ho-hum rut because ours is a field that is always changing and expanding. And that’s just the technical subject matter. Every new client is truly unique—with apologies to Strunk and White because that statement is (truly) redundant. And every long-time client is facing their own protean circumstances.

So, what’s the one action we can take, even if the walls that entrap us are of our own making? Back to David Whyte’s counsel:

Sometimes we have built the walls ourselves, but often it is simply the nature of things that walls that once served and sheltered us at certain periods of our life only imprison us when we have remained within their confines for too long. A work emboldens us for a while, and then, if we do not invigorate and reimagine our participation, it begins to enclose us and slowly starve our spirit. Good work done in the same way for too long, or done in the wrong way for any amount of time, eats away our sense of being right with the world.

Often, in order to stay alive, we have to unmake a living in order to get back to living the life we wanted for ourselves. It is this cycle of making, disintegration, and remaking that is the hallmark of meaningful and creative work.

Invigorate And Reimagine

How can you invigorate and reimagine your participation in your practice? What’s the good work that you’ve done in the same way for too long? And owing to your humanity, what is the work you’ve simply done wrong that you know could be done better?

What is the working and living that you can unmake to get back to living the life you want for yourself?

The great news is that if you had it in you to build and sustain your practice, you have it in you to remake your living. The view from the top of the pole only feels like a trap when you mistake it for the destination. It isn’t. It’s where the next horizon comes into view—and the only way toward it is the step forward.

Quote O' The Week

T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) may be the patron saint of anyone doing meaningful work inside a day job: He wrote The Waste Land, arguably the most influential poem of the twentieth century, while working as a banker at Lloyds of London. A Missouri kid who became a British citizen, a skeptic who became a devout Anglican, Eliot won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948. This week's quote comes from "Little Gidding," the last of his Four Quartets, written in wartime London while he served as a rooftop fire-watcher during the Blitz, and named for a tiny religious community where he'd gone seeking quiet.

Weekly Market Update

The S&P survived the week despite an historic down day, but small value leads the way this week:

• + 0.65% .SPX (500 U.S. large companies)

• + 2.42% IWD (U.S. large value companies)

• + 4.01% IWM (U.S. small companies)

• + 4.24% IWN (U.S. small value companies)

• + 2.67% EFV (International value companies)

• + 1.83% SCZ (International small companies)

• + 0.44% VGIT (U.S. intermediate-term Treasury bonds

Expansion Intact

Contributed by Tony Welch, CFA®, CFP®, CMT, Chief Investment Officer, SignatureFD

Despite a steady stream of headlines about inflation, interest rates, and geopolitical tensions, the broader economic picture remains surprisingly resilient.

One indicator we watch closely is Ned Davis Research’s Economic Timing Model, which combines dozens of economic data points into a single measure of economic momentum. Today, that model remains firmly in expansion territory and is consistent with moderate economic growth rather than recession. Historically, readings near current levels have been associated with positive equity market returns over the following year.

That doesn’t mean there aren’t risks. Inflation remains elevated, and higher energy prices are creating new challenges for consumers and businesses alike. But the data continue to suggest that the economy is in solid shape.

For investors, we believe the message is straightforward: while volatility is always possible, the weight of the evidence continues to support economic expansion and a constructive backdrop for long-term investors.

Chart O’ The Week

The Message from Our Indicators

The market spent much of the week digesting a now familiar combination of strong economic data and stubborn inflation.

On the growth side, the evidence remains encouraging. Payroll growth surprised to the upside, recession indicators remain subdued, and several of our preferred economic models continue to point toward ongoing expansion rather than contraction. The economy may be operating at different speeds across industries and income groups, but the broader picture remains one of resilience.

Inflation, however, continues to complicate the outlook. Both consumer and producer prices moved higher in recent reports, driven in large part by energy costs. While some underlying inflation measures showed signs of moderation, inflation remains well above the Federal Reserve’s target and we believe is likely to keep policymakers on hold for the foreseeable future.

Finally, investors are turning their attention to one of the year’s most anticipated market events: SpaceX’s public debut. Along with several other large AI-related companies expected to come public, this represents one of the largest waves of new stock supply in years. Historically, IPO booms tend to emerge after strong market advances and periods of investor optimism. While that environment has often been associated with somewhat lower future returns, it has not reliably signaled the end of bull markets.

Our takeaway remains largely unchanged. Economic growth continues to hold up better than many expected, inflation remains the primary risk to monitor, and enthusiasm surrounding new public offerings reflects a market that still has confidence in the future. While we would not be surprised by periods of volatility, the overall weight of the evidence continues to suggest that we give the bull market the benefit of the doubt.

Enjoy the World Cup this weekend!

Tim

But the truth is that it’s not just church, or any particular religion, that the study is about. It’s in part about the practice of transcendence and the ritual of community in our lives.

I confess that I didn’t take much convincing as a (mostly) lifelong churchgoer myself—but I was still surprised by the stark clarity of these secular studies.

I hope you enjoy the insight and the suggested application! And you’ll have to check out Tony’s Weekly Market Update as well, as he explores a counterintuitive perspective for a down week—that consumer optimism seems to be on the rise.

Tim Maurer, CFP®, RLP®

Partner

SIGNATUREFD

In this Net Worthwhile® Weekly you'll find:

• Financial LIFE Planning:

  • Why Church Attendance Can Predict Happiness More Than Wealth Does

• Quote O' The Week:

  • Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

• Weekly Market Update:

  • Optimism Is Rising

Financial LIFE Planning

Why Church Attendance Can Predict Happiness More Than Wealth Does

Two secular studies and a lifelong churchgoer walk into the same data—and reach the same conclusion.

Poor people who regularly go to church are happier than wealthy people who don’t.

And although this might be my anecdotal observation as a lifelong church goer (with the exception of that six-year stretch in my early 20s) and 28-year veteran of the financial advisory world, this is a conclusion that comes from one of the most respected longitudinal social science datasets in the U.S. It’s a secular study run by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago.

So, this isn’t one of those retirement surveys done by a financial company—or a Christian organization telling you that filling their pews will make you happy. In fact, when William von Hippel, a behavioral scientist at the University of Queensland, first saw the data, he thought he’d made a coding error. Here’s a glimpse of a graphic that summarizes the findings that I saw thanks to the leader of one of the largest advisory firms in the country:

So, why does this interesting phenomenon show up, and what do we do with the information?

What’s The Meaning Behind The Data?

“Money buys you a fair bit of happiness,” von Hippel acknowledges, “but connection gives you more bang for your buck.”

Ahhh. Connection. Increasingly lacking in our fast-paced, technologically-driven lives. And that is often especially the case among the affluent and upwardly mobile.

“I suspect that wealthy, educated urbanites are paying a steeper price for their lifestyle than they realize,” hypothesizes von Hippel. “Many of us have paid too great a price in connection for our increased autonomy.”

How ironic, eh, that with increased income often comes increased responsibilities and lifestyle creep that crowds out the very connection that brings the greatest joy life has to offer?

Have you felt that in your own life and work?

Applications

So, how do we apply this insight? I don’t think it’s just about regular church attendance, but von Hippel isn’t the only social scientist to acknowledge the significant role of faith in human flourishing and happiness.

Two Harvard profs and authors have picked up on this as well, looking at it from a somewhat different angle, both supported by the longest-running study on human happiness at Harvard University.

Arthur Brooks, the author of From Strength To Strength, among others, says that you don’t have to adopt his religion—or any particular religion, for that matter—in order to get the faith bump in happiness. It’s about transcendence for him.

“When I say faith, that’s a handy way for me to talk about transcendence,” Brooks says. “Transcendence is thinking about something bigger than our everyday lives.”

And it’s the typical trappings of our everyday lives that often crowd out transcendence, isn’t it? Here’s how Brooks reconciles it for us:

“Your brain’s reward system keeps you chasing earthly delights that will enhance your reproductive fitness and likelihood of survival in comparison with others. These fall broadly into the categories of money, power, pleasure, and honor, which the medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas called substitutes for God. Whether you buy Aquinas’s assessment or not, you can’t really argue with him that these rewards overpromise and underdeliver happiness. They simply don’t satisfy.”

Did you catch that? “These rewards”—the stuff that so much of life seems to scream we need—“overpromise and underdeliver happiness.” But transcendence, he suggests, delivers.

And Brooks doesn’t stop short of practical application either. Here’s his direct recommendation for us:

“You need to curtail your worldly appetites, and instead pursue what truly brings enduring happiness: a faith or life philosophy, family relationships, real friendship, and meaningful work.”

Combined Wisdom

Lastly, Harvard epidemiologist Tyler VanderWeele, who directs the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard, has spent his career studying what produces human flourishing across cultures. His finding is quietly clarifying: private spirituality—meditation, personal prayer, individual belief—produces some benefit, but it’s not the full effects to be derived from persistent church attendance. Our presence matters.

“The teachings, the relationships, the spiritual practices, over time, week after week, taken together gradually alters behavior, creates meaning, alleviates loneliness, and shapes a person in ways perhaps too diverse to document,” VanderWeele says. “Such things alter health.”

And please note, he says this actually alters our actual health, not just our happiness.

Which brings us back to where we started. Poor people who regularly go to church are happier than wealthy people who don’t. And it’s not necessarily because of what they believe when they get there, but because they go. They are growing individually, in community.

So the question isn’t really whether you can afford a life of meaning. It’s whether you’re willing to show up for one.

Quote O' The Week

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881–1955) was a French Jesuit priest, paleontologist, and philosopher who helped discover Peking Man, served as a stretcher bearer in World War I, and spent his career arguing that science and spirituality pointed toward the same truth. His major philosophical works were considered so controversial that the Jesuit order banned their publication during his lifetime — they circulated underground before finally being released after his death in 1955. He is now considered one of the most influential spiritual thinkers of the 20th century.

Weekly Market Update

After a strong run, profit takers dominated this week across the asset class spectrum:

• - 2.59% .SPX (500 U.S. large companies)

• - 0.65% IWD (U.S. large value companies)

• - 3.02% IWM (U.S. small companies)

• - 2.07% IWN (U.S. small value companies)

• - 2.23% EFV (International value companies)

• - 3.43% SCZ (International small companies)

• - 0.90% VGIT (U.S. intermediate-term Treasury bonds

Optimism Is Rising

Contributed by Tony Welch, CFA®, CFP®, CMT, Chief Investment Officer, SignatureFD

Investors have become increasingly enthusiastic about the stock market. According to Ned Davis Research’s Fab Five Sentiment Component (below), investor sentiment is now approaching one of its most optimistic readings of the past five years.

At first glance, that may sound like bad news. After all, excessive optimism is often associated with market tops. But history suggests the relationship is more nuanced.

When sentiment becomes very bullish, it doesn’t necessarily mean a bear market is around the corner. More often, it signals that markets may be vulnerable to a pause, consolidation, or short-term pullback as expectations become elevated. In fact, the last time sentiment reached a similar level in mid-2024, stocks ultimately finished the year higher, although investors endured an 8% correction along the way.

Today’s enthusiasm is easy to understand. Corporate earnings continue to surprise to the upside, AI-related investment remains robust, and economic data continues to point toward slower growth rather than a recession. At the same time, excitement surrounding a wave of high-profile IPOs has added another layer of optimism to investor psychology.

The lesson is not that investors should become fearful. Rather, it is a reminder that strong markets often climb a wall of worry, but they occasionally need to pause when optimism gets ahead of itself.

Chart O’ The Week

The Message from Our Indicators

The weight of the evidence continues to favor a continuation of the bull market, but investor expectations are rising. That doesn’t mean the trend is ending; it simply means markets may become more vulnerable to normal bouts of volatility along the way.

Recent data showed manufacturing activity reaching its strongest level in four years, job openings rebounding, and layoffs remaining unusually low. Corporate profits also continue to expand, providing an important cushion for both the economy and financial markets. Taken together, these are not the conditions that have historically preceded recessions.

At the same time, we are beginning to see a different type of signal emerge. Investor optimism has become increasingly widespread. Surveys show elevated expectations for future stock gains, IPO activity is accelerating, and market enthusiasm surrounding artificial intelligence remains exceptionally strong.

Importantly, optimism is not the same thing as risk. Bull markets often become more optimistic as they mature. However, periods of elevated enthusiasm can create conditions where markets become more sensitive to disappointing news.

For now, our indicators suggest the fundamental backdrop remains supportive. Economic growth is slowing but still positive. Earnings continue to grow. Labor markets remain stable. While some sentiment measures have become stretched, we have not yet seen the type of broad deterioration in economic or market data that typically accompanies a major market downturn.

Enjoy the first full weekend of June!

Tim

I spent a good part of this spring sitting with that kind of complexity alongside some remarkable people. What emerged was a way of thinking about navigating life, work, and money that I haven’t been able to shake. I don’t think you will either.

So this week, we’ll examine what a Stanford professor, a 19th century German philosopher, and a modern-day Celtic poet have to tell us about navigating through the fog of irreducible complexity. Turns out, the answer is simpler than we’d expect and has nothing to do with thinking harder or working more.

Tony will also enlighten us on the machinations of one of the most complex mechanisms on the planet—the global markets—and how they reacted to the narratives of the week in the world, as he asks the operative question following another up week: Should investors fear a winning streak?

Thank you sincerely for spending any part of your weekend with us!

Tim Maurer, CFP®, RLP®

Partner

SIGNATUREFD

In this Net Worthwhile® Weekly you'll find:

• Financial LIFE Planning:

  • What To Do When We Don’t Know What To Do

• Quote O' The Week:

  • Marianne Williamson

• Weekly Market Update:

  • Should Investors Fear A Winning Streak?

Financial LIFE Planning

What To Do When We Don’t Know What To Do

Think of a time when you were in the midst of a challenging situation, a major life transition, the beginning or ending of a key relationship, a shift in your career. Or perhaps you’ve made a bold decision to improve your mental, physical, or spiritual health—and yet you know it’s not just your life that will be impacted.

You probably don’t have to think too hard to pinpoint a situation like this, because the chances are good you’re facing at least one right now. It can feel like you’re navigating through thick fog. What is the fog? Jim Collins offers an answer in his new book, What To Make Of A Life:

Fog is when you go through a phase of immense uncertainty and lack of clarity about the best path forward, perhaps even having no clear idea where you want to go. When in the fog, you can feel confused or disoriented or unsteady or reeling—or maybe all of these. You might be expending a lot of energy in the fog, but it can feel more like wandering and stumbling than purposeful strides toward a clear destination. In the thickest fog, you can feel truly lost.

Sound familiar? It’s because life often is a fog; it is a complex system—or complex adaptive system, to be precise. And an understanding of this system, and the others by which we operate, matters because we’re often using the wrong solution to address the right problems.

Navigating Through The Fog

Brenda Zimmerman and Sholom Glouberman wrote the definitive paper on these systems that I’ll summarize briefly:

• Simple: Following a recipe. Clear steps, predictable outcome, expertise is easily transferrable.

• Complicated: Sending a rocket to the moon. Many variables, requires real expertise, but it is ultimately knowable and engineer-able.

• Complex: Raising a child. Every child (and every parent) is different. Past success doesn’t guarantee future results, and expertise helps, but is not ultimately determinant in the outcome.

But even these three systems don’t entirely explain everything that will come your way in life, so under the header of complex systems, there are two additional variants that may just give you chills when you read them, especially if you’re in the midst of the fog right now:

• Complex Adaptive: A family. CAS (thanks to research from the Santa Fe Institute) are those that have many interacting agents, requiring constant adaptation, involve emergent (unpredictable) behavior, and are non-linear—meaning, small inputs can have large effects, and vice versa.

• Chaotic: A market crash or “tail event.” There’s no discernible cause-and-effect relationship in the moment. Historical patterns don’t hold, expert models fail in real time, and no amount of analysis produces a clear answer.

Here’s why it was so important to me to break each of these examples down for you: I want you to know that what you’re going through—the fog you’re in—is almost surely involving a complex adaptive system. So it makes sense that it’s hard, that it’s confusing if not confounding.

For example, just about everything in personal financial planning—especially if your plan involves anybody but you and/or is in any way related to financial markets—is a complex adaptive system. And yes, that means that just about all the schtick-based, guru-originated, do-it-my-way-or-the-highway, financial counsel out there often falls short; because they’re offering simple systems for complex, often complex adaptive, and occasionally chaotic situations.

So what can we do?

Simplex Stepping

In What To Make Of A Life, Collins borrows from his fellow professor, George Dantzig, the phrase “simplex stepping,” and he explains how to apply it:

Imagine you’re trying to find your way to a destination, but you don’t know what that destination is. Imagine all you can see is a small 360-degree circle around you, and you cannot see possible steps beyond that circle. So, you simply take what looks like the next best step within that small circle. Then you reset and look around the new location, and ask, “Okay, now standing here, what looks like the next best step?” You take that next step. Then you reset and take the next step. Even if a step doesn’t prove particularly helpful, or even feels like a small mistake you need to reverse, you simply readjust and ask, “Okay, so now what looks like the best next step?” You just keep next-stepping, one step after another, until you reach a destination. Now suppose, without ever knowing where all the other untaken steps could have taken you, you feel confident that you’ve reached a great destination. This is the essence of simplex stepping through the fog of life.

Simple, but not simplistic. And simply brilliant. This is how we navigate this territory, how we wade into the midst of a complex adaptive system and find our way out.

I’ve had the opportunity to participate in three Society of Advice Retreats over the past quarter, led by my friend, author, and artist, Carl Richards. The stated objective for every group (of no more than 10 participants, usually financial advisors, educators, and leaders) is to bring one big question, challenge, or opportunity that they are navigating with the goal of leaving with a clear next step that they can take, however small, in and through the fog.

The routine is that we walk through a mental model—like the simple—>complicated—>complex—>complex adaptive—>chaotic model I’ve shared with you here. And then we walk—literally—in and around beautiful outdoor spaces. Following Nietzsche’s guidance that “all truly great thoughts are conceived while walking,” we’d use the physical next steps to envision the next practical steps we could take in the navigation of our complex circumstances. Then we’d process our insight, and invite that of others, in dyads, triads, and as a larger group. Then we’d do it again, through the lens of another mental model, and perhaps a third.

What interested me the most is how often the mere willingness to create this space for these groups of high achievers resulted in nothing short of revelation—and how often the challenge they brought with them was different than that with which they departed. But everyone left with more clarity than they came with, and a few repeatable philosophies and processes that could be practiced and applied in just about every area of life and work.

But I do have a warning, especially for those who, either through compulsion or impulsion, have a tendency to move too quickly through the fog.

Warning For Executives, High Achievers, And Quick-Starts

“The trap for high-achieving executives is that the discomfort of fog triggers premature action,” Collins says. “Leaping just to get out of the fog can send you right over another cliff.”

Too often, it seems, executive leaders are under immense pressure to act, and often to act boldly. Individual high achievers and “quick starts” may feel an impulsion to do the same. But the mature executive will be willing to apply simplex stepping systematically. And the mature high achiever can amplify their achievements and blunt their failures by making simplex stepping a core competency.

Start Close In

It’s not just business writers and academics, like Collins, who offer us direction for navigating the every-day complexity of life. I think precisely because of the inherent mystery in the myriad complexities we regularly face that we need the insight of philosophers and poets, like David Whyte, who offers us this guidance in his beautiful poem, Start Close In:

Start close in,

don’t take the second step

or the third,

start with the first

thing

close in,

the step

you don’t want to take.

And please note that last line, because it may be the most important of all the guidance in this post. In order to move forward—in order to simplex step through the complexity of life, work, and money—you will be called out of your comfort zone. In order to maintain your momentum and benefit from the new perspective offered, we need to exercise something that can’t be perceived; it must, instead, be practiced:

Courage.

And I pray you find it.

If you enjoyed this post and are inspired to read Jim Collins’ newest book, please hit the REPLY button in your email and type “Simplex Stepping.” If you’re the first to reply, I’ll be thrilled to send you a copy.

Quote O' The Week

Marianne Williamson didn't arrive at wisdom easily. A cabaret singer turned spiritual wanderer, she spent years traveling, experimenting, and attending twelve-step programs before a bout of deep depression in her late twenties led her — reluctantly, given her Jewish faith — to a book called A Course in Miracles. That encounter reshaped her life. Her 1992 book A Return to Love became a #1 New York Times bestseller, and the paragraph below may be its most quoted passage — though you've almost certainly seen it misattributed to Nelson Mandela's inaugural address. It wasn't his. It was hers:

Weekly Market Update

With the exception of the tiniest little down tick for international value, the markets were cheering this week:

• + 1.43% .SPX (500 U.S. large companies)

• + 0.69% IWD (U.S. large value companies)

• + 1.86% IWM (U.S. small companies)

• + 1.21% IWN (U.S. small value companies)

• - 0.01% EFV (International value companies)

• + 1.56% SCZ (International small companies)

• + 0.61% VGIT (U.S. intermediate-term Treasury bonds

Should Investors Fear A Winning Streak?

Contributed by Tony Welch, CFA®, CFP®, CMT, Chief Investment Officer, SignatureFD

Eight straight weeks of gains sound like the kind of thing that should make investors nervous.

After all, markets are not supposed to go up in a straight line. When stocks rally for this long, the natural instinct is to assume the market has gotten ahead of itself and a pullback must be around the corner.

That may happen in the short term. Markets rarely move higher without pauses.

But history tells a more interesting story.

The S&P 500 recently logged its eighth consecutive week of gains, something that has only happened a handful of times over the past 70-plus years. Surprisingly, these kinds of winning streaks have not typically been signs of an exhausted market. In fact, they have more often occurred during healthy bull markets, periods when investor confidence and corporate earnings were improving together (table below).

In other words, strong momentum is often a symptom of improving fundamentals rather than reckless speculation.

Importantly, this does not mean markets are risk-free from here on out. Some past streaks were followed by short-term volatility, and no rally moves in a perfectly straight line. But the bigger lesson is that strength alone is not usually a reason to become pessimistic.

It is also worth noting that today’s environment differs from some of the market extremes investors understandably worry about. While excitement around artificial intelligence and upcoming mega-IPO activity has prompted comparisons to the late 1990s, earnings growth has been much stronger this cycle and has generally kept pace with rising stock prices.

The bottom line: a strong market can certainly cool off, but history suggests long winning streaks are often a feature of healthy bull markets, not necessarily a warning sign that the end is near.

Chart O’ The Week

The Message from Our Indicators

There is no shortage of things investors could worry about right now. Inflation remains higher than the Federal Reserve would like. Bond yields have stayed elevated. Headlines around artificial intelligence, trillion-dollar IPOs, and market concentration have sparked inevitable comparisons to the dot-com bubble. And after a strong rally, some level of investor caution is healthy.

At the same time, there are also meaningful reasons we believe the market continues to deserve the benefit of the doubt.

First, earnings continue to do much of the heavy lifting. First-quarter earnings season came in stronger than expected, and importantly, strength has extended beyond just a handful of mega-cap technology companies. While AI-related businesses remain major contributors, profit growth has broadened across much of the market. That matters because durable bull markets tend to be supported by improving business fundamentals, not just investor enthusiasm.

Second, while comparisons to 1999 are understandable, today’s backdrop looks meaningfully different in a few important ways. During the dot-com bubble, stock prices dramatically outpaced the growth in corporate profits. Today, earnings have largely kept pace with market returns. That does not mean pockets of speculation do not exist; they do, but it does suggest the foundation underneath this market is firmer than many assume.

Third, some of the classic signs of a late-cycle bubble still appear absent. Corporate investment in AI infrastructure has been massive, but unlike prior speculative periods, much of it is being funded by strong cash flows rather than excessive borrowing. Investor optimism has risen, but sentiment still looks more cautious than euphoric. In many ways, this continues to feel more like a market climbing a wall of worry than one fueled by unchecked enthusiasm.

None of this means risks should be ignored. Higher inflation could keep interest rates elevated for longer. Earnings expectations have become increasingly optimistic, which raises the bar for companies to continue delivering good news. And market leadership remains narrower than we would prefer.

Still, when we step back and look at the broader evidence, our indicators continue to point toward a backdrop that is more constructive than concerning. Markets rarely move in a straight line, and a pause after a strong run would not be surprising. But for now, we believe the combination of solid earnings, resilient economic activity, and still-improving participation suggests the bull market deserves the benefit of the doubt.

Thanks as always for joining us, and enjoy the rest of your weekend and week to come!

Tim

Which is exactly why I found Sting’s approach worth sharing. This week we’re looking at an approach to parenting around money that the wealthy rocker has articulated—and it seems to have worked for him and his kids. Some version of it may work for you and yours, but it’s really the deliberation he’s undertaken in determining how to apply his values that I’m encouraging. His conclusion is worth considering, too.

Also worthy of consideration is Tony’s Weekly Market Update, in which he asks an important question: Are we seeing a changing backdrop for the markets emerge?

Thanks for joining us!

Tim Maurer, CFP®, RLP®

Partner

SIGNATUREFD

In this Net Worthwhile® Weekly you'll find:

• Financial LIFE Planning:

  • Why Sting, The $550 Million Rocker, Won't Spoil His Work Or His Kids

• Quote O' The Week:

  • Warren Buffett

• Weekly Market Update:

  • A Changing Backdrop for Markets?

Financial LIFE Planning

Why Sting, The $550 Million Rocker, Won't Spoil His Work Or His Kids

This past weekend, I had the opportunity to see the legendary artist and founding member of The Police, Sting, in concert. It was a special setting in Chastain Park, an amphitheater tucked in the middle of a beautiful neighborhood north of Atlanta, hidden amongst the trees.

One of the first things Sting mentioned to the crowd was his appreciation for the venue—acknowledging outright that he could make more money playing at a larger venue, but that it was a love for the setting of Chastain Park and the crowds it tends to draw that had made him choose this venue for “the eighth or ninth time.”

Before we move on, I’m curious:

• To what degree is that type of ethos evident in your approach to work and money?

• Are you doing work that you enjoy enough that you’d still be doing it in your mid-seventies?

• And to what degree have you consciously considered the meaning in your work alongside the money it pays you?

Sting doesn’t need the money. With an estimated net worth of $550 million, the truth is that he doesn’t have to tour at all. Yet, at the age of 74, he’s chosen an even more demanding tour—the Sting 3.0 tour features a return to his Police roots as a power trio with its iconic frontman on bass and lead vocals—at venues that maximize meaning over money.

And that was just the first five minutes. Interestingly, Sting mentioned his financial, career, and estate planning multiple times throughout the show. He made a brief allusion to his primary homestead—”I suppose it’s a castle, really,” in a way that could only sound unpretentious coming from an affable Englishman who still seems a touch surprised by his own success. And he even referenced his plans for insulating his children from the trappings of wealth, a topic he’s discussed publicly multiple times. His strategy is pretty clear:

“I’m spending our money,” Sting said. “I’m paying for your education. You’ve got shoes on your feet. Go to work.”

And he insists it’s an act of love to withhold—and quite the opposite to spoil. “The worst thing you can do to a kid is to say, ‘You don’t have to work.’ I think that’s a form of abuse that I hope I’m never guilty of.”

And this isn’t a new idea of his. He’s been talking about it (and applying it) since at least 2014, when he acknowledged that he would certainly help his children out financially in a time of need, but “I certainly don’t want to leave them trust funds that are albatrosses round their necks. They have to work,” and he concluded, “they have the work ethic that makes them want to succeed on their own merit.”

What I do applaud—and what I think is worth emulating regardless of the conclusion you reach—is the deliberation Sting has clearly applied here. He and his wife have developed a philosophy for their family that is informed by their values around work, possessions, money, and experiences. The conclusion he’s reached may or may not be right for you. But the process of reaching one almost certainly is.

Quote O' The Week

Warren Buffett, the legendary investor and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, has been one of the wealthiest people on earth for decades — and one of the most consistent voices against passing that wealth directly to his children. He's pledged to give away 99% of his fortune to philanthropy, with his three children overseeing the distribution rather than inheriting it directly. The quote below has been his stated philosophy since at least 1986.

Interestingly, His son Peter received roughly $90,000 from a family farm sale at age 19 and used it to launch a music career. He's now an Emmy Award-winning composer and co-chair of the NoVo Foundation. It's arguably the clearest proof of concept for his father's philosophy: enough to do anything, not enough to do nothing.

Weekly Market Update

The market(s) rebounded nicely this week, with small and value leading the way:

• + 0.88% .SPX (500 U.S. large companies)

• + 1.78% IWD (U.S. large value companies)

• + 2.71% IWM (U.S. small companies)

• + 2.59% IWN (U.S. small value companies)

• + 1.79% EFV (International value companies)

• + 1.14% SCZ (International small companies)

• + 0.19% VGIT (U.S. intermediate-term Treasury bonds

A Changing Backdrop for Markets?

Contributed by Tony Welch, CFA®, CFP®, CMT, Chief Investment Officer, SignatureFD

For much of the past two years, markets have benefited from a quiet but important tailwind: inflation was generally moving lower. That mattered because falling inflation helped ease pressure on interest rates, supported stock valuations, and created a friendlier environment for growth-oriented areas of the market.

The chart below highlights a historical pattern: markets have generally performed best during periods of falling or stable inflation, while rising inflation environments have tended to be more challenging.

The keyword here is tended.

We are not declaring a return to the inflation spikes of 2022. But recent developments, including higher energy prices and firmer inflation data, suggest the disinflation trend that has supported markets may be fading. Markets do not just care about the level of inflation; they care about the direction.

The encouraging news is that strong earnings growth and a resilient economy can still support markets, even in a somewhat stickier inflation backdrop. But if inflation proves more persistent than expected, investors may need to adjust to an environment where interest rates stay higher for longer, and market leadership shifts to inflation beneficiaries.

Chart O’ The Week

The Message from Our Indicators

If you only read headlines, you might think the economy is either booming or on the edge of recession. Reality continues to look more nuanced.

Recent data suggests the U.S. economy hit a Spring soft patch, but it is still moving forward. Manufacturing activity improved, services activity softened modestly, and the labor market remains surprisingly resilient. Housing continues to feel pressure from higher mortgage rates, but it is not showing signs of outright collapse. Meanwhile, consumer spending appears steadier than many feared, despite higher gasoline prices and ongoing geopolitical uncertainty.

Perhaps most importantly, the ingredients that typically accompany recessions – falling corporate profits, a rapidly weakening labor market, and broad business retrenchment – remain notably absent. That does not eliminate risks, but it argues for caution against becoming overly pessimistic too quickly.

If there has been one consistent surprise in 2026, it is how strong corporate earnings have remained.

With more than 90% of companies reporting, first-quarter earnings growth for the S&P 500 is tracking near its strongest pace since late 2021, and the vast majority of companies have beaten expectations. Even more encouraging, earnings estimates improved throughout the reporting season.

Nvidia’s earnings this week put an exclamation point on that story. While expectations remain sky high, the company once again delivered strong results, reinforcing that the artificial intelligence investment boom remains very real. Perhaps more importantly, markets have not been driven solely by investors paying ever-higher prices. Technology valuations have been relatively stable, meaning earnings growth, not just excitement, has been doing much of the heavy lifting.

This distinction matters. History shows that markets are generally on firmer footing when profits support prices.

If the economy and earnings stories remain relatively constructive, what has investors nervous?

Interest rates.

Bond yields have moved higher in recent weeks as markets grapple with a difficult question: what happens if inflation stays somewhat sticky while economic growth remains resilient? In that environment, the Federal Reserve may have less flexibility to cut rates than many investors had hoped just a few months ago. Several market-based indicators tied to monetary conditions and inflation expectations have become more cautious as rates climbed.

At the same time, investor sentiment has become more optimistic after the market’s strong rebound, which means expectations are no longer particularly low. That does not mean trouble is imminent, but it does suggest markets may become more sensitive to disappointments, especially if inflation surprises to the upside or rates move materially higher from here.

For now, we continue to see a positive market environment, but inflation and interest rates are worth keeping an eye on in upcoming months.

Happy Memorial Day weekend!

Tim

Also, a small confession in the Quote O’ the Week: I’ve been using a quote for years that I originally thought belonged to Steven Covey, and then Thomas Merton, and it turns out it was neither of those guys—and the real story is even more interesting.

Meanwhile, in our Weekly Market Update, our resident investing guru, Tony Welch, offers a somewhat cautionary take this week, suggesting The Market’s Quiet Tailwind May Be Fading.

Thanks for joining us!

Tim Maurer, CFP®, RLP®

Partner

SIGNATUREFD

In this Net Worthwhile® Weekly you'll find:

• Financial LIFE Planning:

  • What Are You Actually Working Toward?

• Quote O' The Week:

  • Allen Raine

• Weekly Market Update:

  • The Market’s Quiet Tailwind May Be Fading

Financial LIFE Planning

What Are You Actually Working Toward?

Thomas Keating, Thomas Merton, And The Goals You Never Actually Chose

I’m convinced that much of the wisdom needed to effectively navigate the intersection of money and humanity lies outside the financial domain. Outside of the financial industry establishment, in particular, because its economic bias is often in conflict with those it serves.

Lest you think I’m exaggerating, consider the simple fact that the industry proper profits most from its clients’ willingness to accumulate and warehouse its wealth rather than to activate or deploy it—you know, to use it.

I’m not anti-establishment, per se, and I think the industry offers much to benefit the consumers it serves and the true advisors who are the guides and sherpas for those clients. But it can’t be the sole source of truth.

It’s one of the reasons I so often feature wisdom from different fields: behavioral finance, economics, and psychology, sure, but also poetry, music, philosophy, and spirituality. And this week’s insight comes quietly from the latter, a Cistercian monk known for his wisdom in the contemplative tradition of Centering Prayer, where the deepest spiritual work isn’t striving harder but opening up. Not pushing, but allowing.

I’ll warn you in advance that his insight will almost immediately appear counter to what we’ve been taught about life, work, and money. So, let’s walk through it together.

Thomas Keating said,

“The chief act of the will is not effort but consent.”

How could that possibly be instructive in a world that is all about effort? It’s all about saving, buying, selling, reallocating, sheltering, skipping, deferring, growing, protecting, giving, and occasionally living.

The financial industry—and even the financial advice industry—is built almost entirely on effort. More discipline, better systems, stronger habits, tighter budgets, capturing beta, and pursuing alpha. And too often, it doesn’t stick, not because people aren’t trying hard enough, but because they’ve never actually consented to the goal. They inherited it. From their parents, their peer group, their spiritual tradition, their culture, and yes, their financial advisor.

They’re efforting toward something they never genuinely chose.

I believe the advisor’s real job—the one that separates true advice from sales, and even planning—is to help clients discover what they actually consent to before building a plan around it.

Let’s disabuse ourselves of the notion that this is some more passive approach, some sort of esoteric, woo-woo philosophy that is “out there,” disconnected from daily reality. It’s actually all about reality, and about tapping into a deeper reality that many of us never make the time or find the space to explore.

Another spiritual giant, Thomas Merton, said,

“The biggest human temptation is to settle for too little.”

It’s just that we often settle for too little by doing too much. And we often mistake activity for progress.

So, I’m curious: Have you ever actually asked yourself whether you consented to the goals you’re working toward? Are your aims rooted in your intentions, or someone else’s?

And if you’re a financial advisor, have you created the space for your clients to do so?

Quote O' The Week

I'll be honest: I think I’ve misattributed this quote more than once in the past. Steven Covey definitely paraphrased it, but it’s also often attributed to one of our sources of wisdom from this week’s post, Thomas Merton. But while researching today's post, I discovered it almost certainly isn't Merton’s. Quote Investigator traced it back to a 1915 Brooklyn Daily Eagle piece attributed to "Allen Raine," the pen name of a Welsh novelist named Anne Adaliza Evans. It spread through Stephen Covey, picked up Merton's name somewhere along the way, and has lived on the internet as his ever since.

Weekly Market Update

A Friday rout in particular led to a mostly red week for the markets we track:

• + 0.13% .SPX (500 U.S. large companies)

• - 0.74% IWD (U.S. large value companies)

• - 2.31% IWM (U.S. small companies)

• - 2.67% IWN (U.S. small value companies)

• - 0.90% EFV (International value companies)

• - 1.90% SCZ (International small companies)

• - 1.05% VGIT (U.S. intermediate-term Treasury bonds

The Market’s Quiet Tailwind May Be Fading

Contributed by Tony Welch, CFA®, CFP®, CMT, Chief Investment Officer, SignatureFD

For much of the last two years, markets have enjoyed a powerful tailwind that rarely made headlines: inflation was steadily moving lower. That trend helped consumers feel better, gave the Federal Reserve room to pause interest rate hikes, and generally made life easier for investors. Now, however, that tailwind may be losing some force.

This week’s chart highlights an idea: Markets tend to care less about how high inflation is and more about whether inflation is getting better or worse. Think of it this way, investors can usually adapt to inflation if it is moving in the right direction. What tends to create problems is when inflation starts accelerating again after everyone thought the worst was behind us.

The signal in the chart recently turned less favorable, suggesting inflation has risen enough, and quickly enough, to warrant closer attention. That does not mean trouble is guaranteed. In fact, this same indicator stayed supportive through several inflation scares over the last few years. But it is a reminder that what had quietly been helping markets may now be, at best, neutral.

The good news? Markets are influenced by many forces at once. Earnings remain strong, consumers are still spending, and the economy has so far avoided the kind of wage-price spiral that made inflation so damaging in the 1970s. In other words, we believe inflation deserves more respect than it did a few months ago, but it is probably too early to assume the playbook has fundamentally changed.

Chart O’ The Week

The Message from Our Indicators

Inflation made an unwelcome return to center stage this week. Both consumer and producer prices came in hotter than expected, driven in part by higher energy prices tied to Middle East tensions. The encouraging news is that while prices have heated up, the more worrisome “second-round effects”, where inflation spills into wages and becomes self-reinforcing, still appear relatively contained. Consumers are still spending, the labor market remains stable, and retail sales suggest the economy is slowing only modestly, if at all.

Corporate fundamentals continue to provide an important offset. Earnings season has been stronger than expected, helping explain why stocks have remained resilient despite the inflation headlines. Interestingly, even as markets have climbed, valuations have actually become a bit less stretched because earnings have been growing quickly. Put differently, companies have been “growing into” their valuations rather than relying entirely on investor optimism to push prices higher.

From a market perspective, the picture remains constructive, though perhaps less forgiving. You may hear concerns that only a handful of technology companies are carrying the market higher. While leadership has certainly been concentrated, participation beneath the surface has actually been better than many assume. “Market breadth,” or how many stocks are participating in a rally, has been decent even if not exceptional. At the same time, investor optimism has returned quickly after the spring pullback, which can make markets more sensitive to disappointment. We continue to see signs of a healthy bull market, but the path higher may look bumpier than the relatively smooth ride investors have enjoyed recently.

Bottom line: Inflation has shifted from a tailwind to a watchlist item. We believe that deserves attention, but strong earnings, resilient consumers, and still-solid market participation suggest this remains a market to monitor carefully, not fear prematurely.

Have a great week to come!

Tim

I was reminded of the power of this truth recently after being introduced to a hilarious—but all-too-close-to-home—clip from the TV show, Silicon Valley. For maximum enjoyment, I suggest you pause for two minutes and watch it to avoid the spoiler to follow (and note there is a bit of choice language involved if little ears are nearby)…

But in the case that viewing isn’t an option, I’ll summarize in this week’s post below and suggest how “the humble inquiry” provides us with a framework for understanding people better, at work and at home.

Also this week: Tony’s market update, Don’t Fear New Highs, offers a timely and reassuring read on what new market records actually mean.

Thanks for joining us, and of course, Happy Mother’s Day, Mom, and all the moms out there!

Tim Maurer, CFP®, RLP®

Partner

SIGNATUREFD

In this Net Worthwhile® Weekly you'll find:

• Financial LIFE Planning:

  • The Bear Is Sticky With Honey

• Quote O' The Week:

  • Fran Lebowitz

• Weekly Market Update:

  • Don’t Fear New Highs

Financial LIFE Planning

The Bear Is Sticky With Honey

And The Humble Art Of The Clarifying Question

If you haven’t seen the clip, the scene opens with an apparently important individual—Gavin—struggling to sweeten his hot tea. As he’s walking briskly to a waiting car, he’s discussing a current project, and then just before he closes the door and speeds away, he says, “Oh, and the bear is sticky with honey.”

Cut to a room full of earnest corporate minions in a conference room with a whiteboard, trying to dissect and discern the deeper meaning of the cryptic observation of their sage. It gets increasingly ridiculous and funny, of course, before another run-in with Gavin reveals that the plastic bear container of honey he uses for his tea has become sticky—and is in need of replacement.

(Ahhhh…)

We laugh, but we do this all the time in big ways and small. One financial advisor told me a story about an interaction with one of his favorite clients. The client asked the advisor if he could produce the precise number of fees paid in the prior year. The advisor sprang into action and launched into a lengthy defense of the value he’d provided for the client over the course of many years—only to be interrupted by the client halfway. “No, no…I’m thrilled with your work. It’s just that my CPA asked how much I paid in advisory fees last year to determine if it might be deemed a deductible expense on my taxes.”

(Ahhhh…)

Thankfully, there’s a (free) insurance policy that can spare us the embarrassment and save us vast amounts of time if we’re willing to use it. It’s called—drumroll, please: the clarifying question.

But first, why do we have a tendency to jump to conclusions?

Why Do We Jump To Conclusions?

We’re simply wired that way—and it’s for a good reason! Our brain’s default mode is fast, associative, and pattern-matching. This is the processor in our brains that Daniel Kahneman referred to as System 1, and its tendency is to grab the nearest plausible explanation in response to external stimuli and run with it before our slower, more thoughtful and deliberate processor, System 2, can intervene.

I wince when I’m also reminded of the Fundamental Attribution Error, an observation that Lee Ross made all the way back in the 1970’s, noting that we systematically over-attribute other people’s behavior to their character or intent rather than to their circumstances—while simultaneously presuming that any harm that befalls us, individually, is surely due to our circumstances, not our character. That’s why it’s always the other driver’s fault when we get frustrated on the road.

Daniel Freeman further found that our tendency to jump to conclusions based on limited information accelerates when facing a social threat. And that’s the whole point: Our System 1 is activated because it is a protective mechanism. It may not always be right, but it is operating for our benefit. Millennia ago, it might have saved us from a predator, but it makes sense that it also triggers when we perceive that our livelihood may be at risk, like disappointing your boss or client.

So, how do we retain the protective benefits of our System 1 while better tapping into the more deliberative System 2?

Ways To Ask Better Clarifying Questions

Research from Zenger and Folkman in 2016 found that the best listeners ask questions that promote discovery and insight for the speaker, rather than us, the listener. Remember Dr. Klontz’s maxim—you can’t always believe what you think you’ve heard—and consider that whatever you’re hearing from the speaker is likely not a perfect articulation, and we can play a role in helping them find clarity.

Klontz invited me to put it to the test by practicing simple reflection. With this method, you simply parrot back to the speaker what you heard, verbatim to the best of your ability. “So, if I heard you correctly, the last time you reviewed your estate planning documents was in 2006?”

Sometimes it can seem almost silly, but I have been surprised, indeed, to note how often the speaker adjusts his or her statement, especially if you combine the question with a touch of simple silence. “Wait, no—that’s not right. It was actually 2004, right after Sarah was born. Jack was born in 2006, but life was so hectic then, I don’t think we ever updated them again.”

And if you’ve done a good enough job listening in the past, you may also employ strategic reflection. This is when you take what you’ve heard and report back to the speaker by imputing additional meaning or intent to confirm you’re correct. “Ahh, 2006 makes sense. That was when Jack was born, right?”

Maybe you were right, but sometimes this step also illuminates additional meaning that you didn’t necessarily foresee. “Yes, it was when Jack was born. But come to think of it, I don’t think we updated our documents then, after all. I remember being so intimidated by the legalese the first time around that I confess I was looking for an excuse not to go back to the attorney and feel like an idiot.”

Of course, they’re not an idiot, and neither are you for jumping to conclusions, but we could all use a touch of humility to make us better listeners.

Humble Inquiry

The late MIT Sloan School of Management professor, Edgar Schein, literally wrote the book on Humble Inquiry, noting that American professional culture, in particular, is deeply biased toward telling over asking. He describes the practice as “the fine art of drawing someone out, of asking questions to which you do not already know the answer.”

He encourages us to exhibit genuine curiosity longer than we may feel comfortable, and he insists that this is not some token “soft skill” that will slow down our processes. “Relationships are the key to good communication,” Schein says, and “good communication is the key to successful task accomplishment.”

Yes, we should save time in the long run by applying more effort in the short run to better understand what we’re actually hearing.

So, how would Schein have recommended we respond to the client inquiry about fees? He makes the distinction between three types of inquiry:

• Confrontational Inquiry is asking to challenge or test: “So, you think someone’s going to do a better job for you for less??”

• Diagnostic Inquiry is asking questions that lead toward a conclusion you’ve already reached: “Oh, are you unhappy with my performance?”

• Humble Inquiry, however, is asking a question you genuinely don’t know the answer to, from a place of curiosity rather than agenda, which Schein describes as asking “from ignorance.”

Perhaps a humbler approach to the fee question could be: “Of course, I’d be happy to get that for you. And can you give me the context, to be sure I give you all the details that may be helpful?”

And please note that Schein’s claim is that humble inquiry isn’t just a technique that should lead to better outcomes—though it may well be—but it can be far more. It’s a signal of relational trust. When you ask before you tell, and you’re genuinely curious, you’re communicating “I care, and I’m not afraid of what you might actually mean.” And that genuine curiosity can breed confidence that makes clients feel safer, more than any rehearsed value proposition.

And just for fun, how do we think Schein would’ve counseled Gavin’s eager support team following his statement, “The bear is sticky with honey”?

The confrontational version (“Gavin, are you saying we’re doing too much?”) would’ve likely landed them in even more trouble. The diagnostic version (“Is this about the presentation having too much…pizzazz?”) would’ve been presumptive. The humble version, although almost insultingly simple, would’ve likely eliminated all confusion:

“Hey Gavin—what bear?”

Of course, then we all would’ve missed out on a good laugh.

Quote O' The Week

Fran Lebowitz is a New York City-based author, cultural critic, and professional contrarian best known for two slim essay collections — Metropolitan Life (1978) and Social Studies (1981) — that cemented her reputation as one of the sharpest wits in American letters. A self-described slow writer (she has been "nearly finishing" a third book for decades), she has spent the intervening years doing what she does best: talking. Martin Scorsese documented her acerbic observations on New York, culture, and the general decline of everything in the Netflix series Pretend It's a City (2021). She is, in her own estimation, always right.

Weekly Market Update

Wow, it was a good week for stocks. Let’s check in with Tony below to see what new highs really means:

• + 2.33% .SPX (500 U.S. large companies)

• + 1.32% IWD (U.S. large value companies)

• + 1.75% IWM (U.S. small companies)

• + 1.63% IWN (U.S. small value companies)

• + 0.87% EFV (International value companies)

• + 2.94% SCZ (International small companies)

• + 0.14% VGIT (U.S. intermediate-term Treasury bonds

Don’t Fear New Highs

Contributed by Tony Welch, CFA®, CFP®, CMT, Chief Investment Officer, SignatureFD

One of the most common questions we hear when markets reach record highs is: “Should we really be investing new money here?” It’s a fair emotional reaction. New highs can feel like a warning sign, especially when headlines continue to focus on tariffs, deficits, geopolitical tensions, or concerns about the economy.

Historically, though, new highs have tended to be a sign of market strength rather than exhaustion. The chart below from Bespoke Investment Group shows that after the S&P 500 reaches a record high, forward returns have generally been better than average over the next 12 months. In other words, markets making new highs is a normal feature of long-term bull markets.

What makes this week particularly interesting is how the market reached those highs. On Wednesday, the S&P 500 opened strong and never looked back, finishing up more than 1% with the opening price marking the low point of the day. Historically, those types of “buyers in control all day” sessions have been followed by even stronger-than-average returns. The green bars in the chart highlight this setup, showing better forward returns over the next year than the market’s typical experience.

None of this means markets move straight up from here. We expect there will still be pullbacks, volatility, and plenty of reasons for investors to feel uneasy in the short run. But history suggests that new highs, especially those achieved on strong and broad buying pressure, have more often reflected momentum and improved confidence rather than signaling an imminent peak.

Chart O’ The Week

The Message from Our Indicators

The macro backdrop remains more resilient than many expected just a few months ago. This week’s labor market data reinforced that message. April payroll growth came in solid, unemployment held steady at 4.3%, and weekly jobless claims remain contained. While there are pockets of softness, particularly among lower-income consumers facing higher energy and food costs, the broader labor market still appears stable enough to keep recession fears in check for now. At the same time, the combination of AI-related capital spending, fiscal support, and steady employment growth continues to cushion the economy from the inflationary shock tied to the conflict in the Middle East. We believe the result is likely a Federal Reserve that remains patient, balancing still-firm inflation pressures against an economy that continues to expand rather than contract.

Corporate fundamentals also remain stronger than the headlines suggest. One of the more important observations we saw this week came from Strategas, which noted that despite the market’s rally this year, the S&P 500’s forward price-to-earnings multiple has actually contracted by roughly 5% year-to-date while earnings estimates have risen by about 13%. In other words, the market advance has been driven more by improving earnings than speculative multiple expansion. That distinction matters. It helps explain why the current environment differs from prior late-stage bubbles where valuations detached from fundamentals. Earnings growth tied to AI infrastructure spending, improving corporate profitability, and resilient economic activity continues to provide support underneath the market even as inflation and geopolitical concerns linger in the background.

From a trend and sentiment perspective, however, leadership remains narrower than we’d like to see. Semiconductor and AI-related stocks continue to experience an extraordinary melt-up, with some industry groups now trading at historically stretched levels relative to their long-term trends. Strategas highlighted that the semiconductor index is more than 50% above its 200-day moving average, a level only previously seen during the late-1990s technology boom.

At the same time, broader participation beneath the surface remains more muted, with only about half of S&P 500 stocks currently in confirmed uptrends. We do not view this as an outright bearish signal today, particularly with credit spreads remaining calm and cyclical leadership still constructive. But for the bull market to sustain itself over time, we believe leadership likely needs to broaden beyond the AI infrastructure trade into a wider set of sectors, industries, and company sizes. Encouragingly, we are beginning to see some signs of that beneath the surface, including relative strength from small caps, cyclicals, and international equities.

I hope you have an amazing Mother’s Day—especially if you are one!

Tim

In this week’s Financial LIFE Planning section, I’ll explore the three foundational elements Collins suggests are required for a deeply fulfilling life, and how we might deploy our finances in support of that worthy pursuit.

Finally, Tony closes things out with his Weekly Market Update, Growth Driven by AI Investment Cycle.

Thanks for joining us!

Tim Maurer, CFP®, RLP®

Partner

SIGNATUREFD

In this Net Worthwhile® Weekly you'll find:

• Financial LIFE Planning:

  • Flip The Arrow Of Money

• Quote O' The Week:

  • Barbara McClintock

• Weekly Market Update:

  • Growth Driven by AI Investment Cycle

Financial LIFE Planning

Flip The Arrow Of Money

Jim Collins’ New Book Reveals a Blind Spot in the FIRE Movement

First, let me disclaim, so that my bias is clear: I’ve never been a FIRE fan. It’s certainly not the F and the I that I have a problem with. There are very few downsides, after all, to being financially independent. It’s the R and the E that I take issue with: retire early.

But before you skewer me for sharing an opinion that seems unlikely, if not unbecoming, of a financial advisor, please let me explain. I think the goal of great financial planning isn’t just to have more money but to live a better life, and not just at some future date, many years down the road, that isn’t even promised.

To be fair, many modern FIRE advocates are less interested in ceasing work than in escaping dependence on compulsory work. That distinction matters, and it strengthens rather than weakens the question I want to raise here: even if FIRE is really about freedom, does it still subtly frame work itself as something to outgrow?

I understand the allure of a minimalist approach to life and the freedom of not having anyone to answer to as you seek your path, but working and saving at an extreme pace, all for the purpose of sustaining life without reliance on a paycheck, has never sounded particularly compelling to me.

Where FIRE Fails

But in Jim Collins’ new book, he offers an even more convincing argument that exposes a deeper tension within FIRE. In What To Make Of A Life, Collins extols findings from a vast research study that examined prominent pairings who followed similar courses in life to see where their paths converged, diverged, and which of those turns appeared to maximize, or in some cases minimize, genuine meaning in the lives of the subjects.

For example, among the pairings are scientists Barbara McClintock and Grace Hopper; NFL Hall of Famers Alan Page and Carl Eller; and my personal favorite pairing, rock ’n’ rollers Robert Plant and Jimmy Page, the lead vocalist and guitarist for Led Zeppelin.

Through the analysis, among many other insights, Collins identifies three elements that he suggests lead to a deeply fulfilling life, and I couldn’t help but think each of them stands in contrast to the assumptions often embedded in FIRE.

1) Find Your Encoding

First, Collins suggests that in order to live a deeply fulfilling life, we must find our encoding, our “durable, intrinsic capacities built into your construction, waiting to be discovered.” While these will almost certainly be skills that we build on, the important distinction here is that there should be evidence that these are skills we were built for.

An approach designed primarily to maximize income over a shorter span of time, if only to exit work sooner, may distract us from discovering that encoding altogether.

2) Flip The Arrow Of Money

Collins’ second insight may offer the deepest challenge to FIRE. He observes that his subjects “flip the arrow of money” in pursuit of the most fulfilling lives. Collins frames it as a question:

Is money fuel for your work, or is your work fuel for money?

He suggests we flip the arrow from money as the destination to money as the enabler.

To be clear, many of Collins’ subjects made substantial financial sacrifices, which FIRE well positions us to do. But the difference is in the purpose. With FIRE, the sacrifice can be oriented toward no longer having to work. In What To Make Of A Life, sacrifice is oriented toward being able to do the work one is encoded for.

That feels like a radically different vision.

Viewed through that lens, it can be the difference between freedom from work and freedom for meaningful work.

3) Feed Your Inner Fire

Collins’ final element of a deeply fulfilling life suggests we “feed our inner fire” through sustained effort, not a sprint.

While a handful of Collins’ subjects appeared to peak very early in life, what made most of their lives’ work distinctive was the second and third, and sometimes even fourth, pivots made as the frame of their encoding shifted, narrowed, or expanded.

For example, John Glenn was a pilot, a fighter pilot, a test pilot, an astronaut, a Congressman, and a Senator, all before becoming an astronaut again in his 70s.

That doesn’t look like escaping work. It’s personal evolution with and through it.

Perhaps the real essence of Collins’ findings is that meaningful work, paid or not, appears to be a core component of human flourishing. If that’s true, then the question is not how quickly we can escape work, but how intentionally we can orient it.

Quote O' The Week

Barbara McClintock (1902-1992) spent decades studying corn. Not glamorous work, and for much of her career, largely ignored. When she presented her discovery of "jumping genes" in the 1950s, the scientific community didn't just overlook it; many considered it too radical to take seriously. She quietly kept going anyway. In 1983 — roughly thirty years later — she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, becoming the only woman to receive an unshared Nobel in that category. She was 81. She continued working at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory until shortly before her death at 90.

Weekly Market Update

Equities were up across the board this week, with only bonds in the red:

• + 0.91% .SPX (500 U.S. large companies)

• + 1.41% IWD (U.S. large value companies)

• + 0.95% IWM (U.S. small companies)

• + 0.61% IWN (U.S. small value companies)

• + 0.87% EFV (International value companies)

• + 1.09% SCZ (International small companies)

• - 0.70% VGIT (U.S. intermediate-term Treasury bonds

Growth Driven by AI Investment Cycle

Contributed by Tony Welch, CFA®, CFP®, CMT, Chief Investment Officer, SignatureFD

The U.S. economy continues to show resilience, with first-quarter GDP coming in at a solid pace. But when you look under the hood, the composition of that growth tells a more nuanced story. As shown in the chart, business investment, particularly capital expenditures, was the primary driver of growth, while consumer spending moderated, and other areas like housing, remained a drag.

What stands out is just how concentrated that strength has become. Nonresidential investment surged at a double-digit pace, fueled largely by spending on equipment and technology tied to the ongoing buildout of artificial intelligence infrastructure. In fact, high-tech investment alone accounted for a significant portion of overall GDP growth in the quarter.

At the same time, the consumer, the traditional backbone of the U.S. economy, is still growing, but at a slower and more measured pace. That doesn’t signal weakness on its own, but it does reinforce the idea that today’s expansion is being powered by a narrower set of drivers than in past cycles.

Our takeaway isn’t that growth is deteriorating, it’s that it’s evolving. The economy remains on solid footing, but is increasingly influenced by where investment dollars are flowing, rather than broad-based demand across all sectors.

Chart O’ The Week

The Message from Our Indicators

The economic backdrop remains steady, even if the crosscurrents have picked up. Growth rebounded in the first quarter, supported by a surge in business investment, while labor market data continues to point to resilience. At the same time, inflation pressures have firmed, which is likely to keep the Federal Reserve on hold for the time being. Our takeaway from the data is straightforward: the economy is holding up better than many expected, but not in a way that gives the Fed a clear path to easing policy. That combination, resilient growth with still-elevated inflation, helps explain why interest rates are likely to remain in a holding pattern.

Corporate fundamentals continue to provide support for markets, though the strength is not evenly distributed. Earnings expectations remain solid, with forecasts calling for healthy growth over the coming quarters. Much of the momentum is being driven by companies tied to the AI buildout, where capital spending remains elevated and, importantly, is still largely being funded through internal cash flows rather than external borrowing. That’s an important distinction, as it suggests the current investment cycle is built on a relatively strong foundation. Still, the concentration of growth in a narrow set of companies and themes is worth monitoring, particularly as valuations in those areas have already adjusted higher.

From a market perspective, trends remain constructive, but the underlying participation is more mixed. Equity markets have pushed to new highs, supported by cyclical leadership and improving earnings expectations, yet breadth indicators suggest the rally has not been fully broad-based. Leadership has rotated frequently, and sentiment measures have moved back toward more optimistic levels, which can limit near-term upside if not supported by broader participation. In other words, the trend is positive, but it is not without its fragilities.

Putting it all together, our positioning remains balanced. We continue to see a supportive backdrop for equities overall, but with enough concentration and uncertainty to warrant diversification. Our recent moves, adding exposure to areas like small caps and international markets, reflect that view, positioning portfolios to benefit if leadership broadens beyond the narrow set of companies that have driven much of the market’s recent strength.

Hoping your week to come is a great one!

Tim

It didn’t, of course. It came from a song. And this week, I’m making the case that it contains what may be the single most important precursor to a successful financial plan — one that comes before budgeting, before investing, and before the most famous maxim in personal finance.

We’ll take a look at it in our Financial LIFE Planning section. And don’t miss our Weekly Market Update, too, in which Tony Welch asks a question worth sitting with: Are Investors Already “All In”?

Thanks for joining us this fine Sunday morning!

Tim Maurer, CFP®, RLP®

Partner

SIGNATUREFD

In this Net Worthwhile® Weekly you'll find:

• Financial LIFE Planning:

  • What We Want And What We Need

• Quote O' The Week:

  • Henry David Thoreau

• Weekly Market Update:

  • Are Investors Already “All In”?

Financial LIFE Planning

What We Want And What We Need

Why the confusion between wants and needs is upstream of even the most treasured financial maxims.

“Art imitates life” is a loose interpretation of an Aristotelian saying that Oscar Wilde, ever the contrarian, argued: “Life imitates art far more than art imitates life.”

I’m with Wilde. And thanks to a great piece of art—a musical quote, in this case—this particular post will be shorter than usual because it, as they say, writes itself.

This quote comes from the band REM and their first song on the 1987 album Document, which represents the beginning of what would become enormous commercial success. While I try to avoid over-engineering the meaning behind songs that regularly have multiple dimensions, it’s suggested that “The Finest Worksong” was a critique of work culture based on Henry David Thoreau’s observations at Walden Pond. I don’t think that’s much of a leap considering Thoreau, himself, is explicitly mentioned in the song.

But I don’t think we need to look too far for subtext when the text itself is so pointed and, I’ll suggest, practical:

“What we want and what we need has been confused. Been confused.”

Now I’d like to make the bold claim that eliminating this confusion—between what we want and what we need—is one of the precursors to any successful financial plan.

Furthermore, I submit that the elimination of this confusion is upstream of virtually every financial dysfunction: lifestyle inflation, status spending, over-saving at the expense of meaning, working too long, retiring too early. And the elimination of this confusion is even a prerequisite for the all-time, hall-of-fame, financial maxim to “live below our means.” The latter addresses a symptom; the former addresses the root.

The Zone, Not The Line

The challenge, however, is that the “line” between needs and wants is really more like a zone—and a zone that occasionally moves. I know this will sound silly, but for some, a second home or a country club membership registers as a need. If that sounds ridiculous, let’s rein it in just a touch: Don’t you think there are a lot of people out there—perhaps you’re one of them—who would consider providing their children with a car or a college education as, indeed, a need?

While on the other end of the spectrum, 80% of the world’s population doesn’t have access to a car at all. And there are those considered impoverished, or even homeless, in the United States whose financial wherewithal is greater than that of someone stably employed in much of the developing world.

So the REM front man, Michael Stipe, is verifiably correct that what we want and what we need have been confused, and a meaningful part of the work of financial planning—however seemingly tedious—is to draw our line (or establish our zone) between wants and needs for us. For our families.

A Different Kind of Accounting

You’ve likely heard the phrase, “Show me what you spend money on and I’ll show you what’s important to you.” But however true that might be, it sounds pretty judgmental and condescending, doesn’t it? It feels like the next thing coming is a guilt trip to spend less on yourself, give more to those in need, and the most ubiquitous of whipping posts, to watch less Netflix.

But what if we saw this less as a should and more of a can—less of a have to and more of a get to? My friend, and one of the great illuminators of the heart through the lens of money, Carl Richards, suggests that our acknowledgment of the connection between our values and our spending need not be a pejorative proclamation, but instead a generative journey.

“What if our entire framework around spending money became a practice,” Richards asks, “in which we aligned our spending with what’s important to us?”

What could that look like? “You spend… you notice,” Carl suggests. “Spend… notice. Repeat.”

And he handles the tendency for self-flagellation here beautifully:

“If you don’t like what you see, yeah, it might hurt a little, but it gives you valuable information that allows you to change your behavior.”

And unlike the self-proclaimed personal finance guru crowd out there who seem so willing to suggest that there is inherent value in thrift, Richards concludes that “The goal here isn’t to spend less. It’s to spend lavishly on the things you value and cut ruthlessly on the things you don’t.”

We’re always talking about rebalancing our portfolios as a wise practice in wealth management—but what about our budgets and spending? Couldn’t it make sense to recalibrate our spending periodically, too?

And this is where the help of a financial advisor can come into play, not to tell us what our line is between needs and wants, or to impute his or her values into our plan to drive our spending—but to create the safe space and ask the potentially hard questions that help us see where our current line is, to identify where we want it to be, and then to live and spend and save in accordance with the values we’ve identified and articulated.

Thoreau retreated to Walden to figure out what he really needed. Stipe seems to have written a song to wrestle with the challenge, right as REM was launching into super-stardom. What about you? How do you want to address your needs and wants, your spending and saving, and how well they’re all aligned with the stuff in life you say is the most important?

Maybe you can enjoy The Finest Worksong while you’re considering those questions.

Quote O' The Week

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) was an American author, philosopher, and naturalist best known for an experiment he conducted in the woods of Concord, Massachusetts. In 1845, he built a small cabin by hand on the shores of Walden Pond and lived there for two years, two months, and two days — deliberately stripping his life down to its essentials to answer a question most people never stop long enough to ask: What do I actually need? His account of that experiment, Walden, remains one of the most searching examinations of the relationship between how we spend our days and what we say we value.

Weekly Market Update

Markets were mixed this week, with domestic stocks eeking out another weekly gain while international stocks went the other way:

• + 0.55% .SPX (500 U.S. large companies)

• + 0.22% IWD (U.S. large value companies)

• + 0.32% IWM (U.S. small companies)

• + 0.25% IWN (U.S. small value companies)

• - 2.46% EFV (International value companies)

• - 3.18% SCZ (International small companies)

• + 0.30% VGIT (U.S. intermediate-term Treasury bonds

Are Investors Already “All-In”?

Contributed by Tony Welch, CFA®, CFP®, CMT, Chief Investment Officer, SignatureFD

Ned Davis Research attempted to answer a compelling question last week: if investors are already heavily allocated to stocks, what drives markets higher from here? The chart this week shows that institutional equity exposure is sitting near the upper end of its historical range, levels that, in the past, have coincided with periods of strong optimism and near the end of bull markets.

That might sound ominous, after all, if everyone is already invested, who is left to buy? But markets rarely move on positioning alone. In fact, history shows that elevated allocations can persist for extended periods when the underlying backdrop remains supportive. In other words, “fully invested” doesn’t necessarily mean “fully valued” or “fully played out.”

What stands out in the data is that this positioning comes with some important offsets. Corporate profitability remains strong, supported by years of efficiency gains and relatively low labor cost pressures. Companies are also sitting on healthy cash reserves, giving them flexibility to invest, buy back shares, or weather volatility. Additionally, the proliferation of defined contribution retirement plans has been a steady source of demand. So while positioning may limit how fast markets move, the fundamental backdrop still helps explain why investors have been willing to stay invested in the first place.

Chart O’ The Week

The Message from Our Indicators

The economic data continues to paint a resilient, if slightly more complex, picture. Business activity is holding in expansion territory, with recent data showing a pickup in both manufacturing and services. At the same time, inflation pressures are re-emerging, driven in part by higher energy prices and renewed supply chain frictions tied to geopolitical tensions. Consumers, however, continue to show durability, with retail spending remaining firm even as prices rise. Taken together, we believe the economy looks less like it is rolling over and more like it is navigating a period of steady growth with pockets of inflation, enough to keep the Federal Reserve patient, but not enough to derail the expansion.

From a fundamental perspective, the story remains constructive. Profit margins are holding near cycle highs, with much of the recent earnings strength coming from areas where scarcity still exists, namely energy and technology. Over time, imbalances like the ones we’re seeing in oil and AI infrastructure tend to normalize, but for now, they are helping support index-level earnings and, by extension, equity markets.

From a trend and sentiment standpoint, the market’s recent rally has been impressive, but not without nuance. Momentum has been strong, historically strong in fact, but some of the confirming signals we typically look for, like broad participation, have been more muted. That leaves us in a familiar position: the trend is positive, but not yet fully validated. Layer on top of that the reality that investor positioning is already elevated, and it suggests that future gains may come with more volatility and less margin for error.

Putting it all together, we remain balanced in our positioning. The economy is holding up, fundamentals are still supportive, and trends are constructive, even if not perfect. At the same time, we are mindful of concentration risks and the potential for leadership to evolve. That’s reflected in our recent moves to add exposure to areas like small caps and international markets, where valuations are more reasonable, and the opportunity set is broader. In an environment like this, we believe staying invested matters, but so does staying diversified.

Mindfully,

Tim