Random Thoughts 2024Q3

Round-up of important items

2024 is flying by - it is already September.

Hopefully you have seen 2 quarters of growth in your net worth and looking at a 3rd coming up in a month.

SP500 is still up a shade under 20% YTD, Russell 2000 (small caps) is up almost 10%, international stocks ~10%, BTC ~30% and Eth ~6%. Even UST is up across the main maturities on the year.

So everything is still doing well so far. Despite it not feeling like we continue in a bull market. At a minimum your 401ks and other retirement accounts should be pulling up your net worth. [A lot of the index performance is being driven by a few big names, so those holding individual securities that aren’t those names may be feeling a bit underwhelmed with their performance]

High-yield savings accounts (HYSA) are still in the 3.5%+ range meaning it isn’t painful to wait and hold some cash. And if you were around 5 years ago, you were able to refinance debt cheap.

All this adds up to seeing some positive numbers go up in your net worth.

Of course, inflation is taking a big bite out of all of the above and that is where we will start today - the 2 big things people stay getting wrong about inflation. This post will also cover a little about the election, taxes, and of course, the cool new Chase ‘free money glitch’ (summary - don’t F with the banks).