108 years ago, the Senate compromised with the House and the Federal Reserve Act was signed into law on December 23, 1913. At present, the Banking Committee held re-nomination hearings for Jerome Powell, the seventeenth Fed chairman.
Continue readingHJ Sims Market Commentary: As the Page Turns
A new year began on Saturday and residents on part of the island nation of Kiribati in the Central Pacific were among the first to ring it in and flip the calendar page from 2021 to 2022. Then, hour by hour, the countdowns moves across the world. Finally, 25 hours after it began, 2022 rolled through the last spot on Earth to officially greet the new year.
Continue readingHJ Sims Market Commentary: All Tolled, A Wonderful Life
In Year Two of this pandemic, while battling the Delta and Omicron variants, supply and labor shortages, multi decade-high inflation, and uncertainties on so many fronts, a number of organizations have nevertheless managed to celebrate significant milestones. Congratulations to one and all for enduring, thriving, and inspiring millions around the world through service, education and entertainment, in both good and trying times.
Continue readingHJ Sims Market Commentary: Numbers
In the course of the day, thousands of numbers fly through our brains, some random, others not to be forgotten. It is hard to imagine life without numbers but there are reportedly some cultures that lack words for all but the one to three. For those of us who spend most of our day immersed in analyzing financial data, we cannot help but wonder how folks manage to get along without being able to precisely identify and verbalize quantities. How do they build, borrow, grow? Can they live longer and happier if the count is limited to “one”, “two”, and “many”?
Continue readingHJ Sims Market Commentary: Pen-flation
A lot has been written about the pandemic, this hundred-year global plague. We know there is still a lot more ink to flow. No matter our roles, we have all become voracious readers of studies and speculations that have kept us swinging between the states of hope and heartbreak, confused by directives, irritated by extreme claims and flat assurances, tired of the topic but anxious to have all the latest news as soon as it breaks via our phones, TVs, watches, radios, or paperboys.
Continue readingHJ Sims Market Commentary: Built by Municipal Bonds
The $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs act was signed into law on Monday by President Biden, who appointed former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu as his senior advisor responsible for coordinating its implementation.
Continue readingAn Exclusive Investment Opportunity: Plantation Village
HJ Sims Market Commentary: Honor to the Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen
Exactly as expected, the central bank announced plans to reduce its monthly bond purchases by $15 billion in November and December and, economic conditions permitting, continue to taper through June of 2022 when net new purchases of government and mortgage-backed bonds would cease.
Continue readingAn Exclusive Investment Opportunity: Wesley Woods of Newnan
HJ Sims Market Commentary: Oases of Care
November is Long Term Care Awareness Month, and this year marks the 20th anniversary of the annual designation. As one of the top capital funding sources for continuing care retirement communities and other senior living facilities, HJ Sims understands that 70% of men and women over the age of 65 will have need for some type of long-term care in the coming years.
Continue readingHJ Sims Market Commentary: No Fugue in D Minor this Halloween
Johann Sebastian Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor is one of the most famous pieces of Baroque organ music ever written and its opening notes still send chills up the spines of Halloween party-goers. At this writing, however, no traders are humming these unforgettably eerie notes as we head into month-end and All Hallows’ Eve.
Continue readingHJ Sims Market Commentary: Seasons of Change
Third quarter corporate earnings reporting season began in earnest last week and stock prices rose as investor alarm over rising inflation, supply disruptions, and waning consumer sentiment notched down a bit with strong bottom line results and positive forward guidance.
Continue readingHJ Sims Market Commentary: Wise Owls and Head Spinners
In the animal kingdom, owls have the highest degree of head rotation. We humans cannot attempt such flexible maneuvers, but as investors, as advisors, as managers, as parents and caregivers, we would sure love to have a 360-degree view of the world at all times, to be able to see whatever is coming from any direction so as to avoid trouble as well as pounce on opportunity.
Continue readingAn Exclusive Investment Opportunity: Searstone 2021
HJ Sims Market Commentary: Pace of the Year-end Race
Here we are in the final quarter of the year trying to figure out what we may need to do to help and protect our portfolios, investment goals, families and businesses, between now and year-end. There is a big “Wall of Worry” and less than 60 trading days left, some of which could be very volatile.
Continue readingAn Exclusive Investment Opportunity: Broadview at Purchase College
HJ Sims Market Commentary: Every Endeavor
Over the past 18 months, we have all refashioned our lives, some several times, by choice or circumstances related to health or work or family. We created safe cocoons and, as a result of vaccines and COVID fatigue, burst out of them.
Continue readingU.S. House Ways and Means Committee Proposes Restoring Tax-exempt Advance Refundings
The House Ways and Means Committee introduced the tax proposal connected with the $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation bill, the Build Back Better Act. The tax proposals included therein would restore tax-exempt advance refundings, which have been unavailable to governmental and 501(c)(3) as a means of reducing the cost of capital since the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.
Continue readingHJ Sims Market Commentary: Bicameral Minds
One psychologist theorized that there may have been a time during human evolution when there was no connection between the right and left chambers in the human brain, perhaps ancient people had a bicameral mind in which one side of the brain made command decisions and the other side listened and obeyed. Many of us are of two minds about the momentous decisions being made in Washington in the coming weeks.
Continue readingHJ Sims Market Commentary: Back to Basics
With consumer confidence falling to a six-month low, many consumers are reducing spending and getting back to the basics. Economists are struggling to put the higher prices we are paying into context to rationalize inflation rates, the consumer price index and other spending metrics.
Continue reading