Wealth today is generally defined as the value of all assets of worth owned by a person, community, country or country. Back in the heyday of the pantheon of the Greek gods, wealth was largely measured in agricultural terms. Today, respondents in the latest annual Schwab modern wealth survey concluded that having a net worth of $1.9 million qualifies a person as wealthy. However, the top 1% of households by income lost almost 16% of their overall wealth from the fourth quarter of 2021 to the third quarter of 2022.

In January 1969, the inflation rate was 4.4% and the unemployment rate fell to 3.4%. In the decades since, inflation has frequently fallen below 4%. Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke in his key role made 2% the official target in 2012. But we have not seen unemployment in the range of 3.4% in the last 54 years. Last Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the economy added a reported 517,000 jobs and that the number of jobless Americans as a percentage of the population fell to 3.4%.

The first month of the New Year is already behind us and how fantastic it would be if we could keep the rally going at this pace for the rest of the year. Heading into Groundhog Day, we would welcome six more weeks, six more months of this performance with low volatility and strong returns. It certainly does not feel like we are about to enter into the recession that economists have threatened for more than a year.