Without any particular fanfare, the investment landscape has shifted dramatically, from public companies to firms controlled by private equity. Increasingly, the opportunities to buy corporate growth are being diminished for the average investor, while a small number of wealthy investors are cherry-picking off the top.

As we wrap up another eventful quarter in the financial markets, our team at Optimus Capital Advisors has compiled a comprehensive analysis of the key trends and developments that shaped Q3 2024.

All eyes are pretty much always on what the U.S. Fed is doing, but most of the attention goes to only one aspect of its manipulation of our economy. You read about whether the Fed is thinking about raising or lowering interest rates, pundits offer up their opinions, economists read the tea leaves of the Fed meeting minutes and press conferences—and, well, from all that, it would be natural to believe that this is the only lever that the Fed is pulling when it wants to raise or lower the temperature of economic activity. But the other handle is the Fed balance sheet.

The U.S. dollar is declining in value compared with a basket of international currencies. The greenback has fallen 5% in the last two months, and now sits at a 13-month low. Should we be alarmed? Probably not. In fact, other nations go to economic war over trying to devalue their currencies compared with the others around the world. A strong currency means that the products of companies based in that country will be priced higher in countries they are exporting to—making them generally less competitive versus local brands.

A week is a long time if you’re a quick-twitch trader or market pundit. Early last week, the Smart Money (which is never as smart as it thinks it is) was assuring all of us that we were in a ‘goldilocks’ economy that had executed a ‘soft landing’—which means avoiding a recession after a period of strong growth. The Fed, we were told, was going to lower interest rates, and, well, everything was (this is not a technical economic term) ‘hunky dory.’

The headline news this week is that the U.S. economy grew at a 2.8% annualized pace in the second quarter, which is basically a continuation of two years of solid, if up-and-down, growth. Consumer spending was (surprisingly) strong (up 2.3% year over year), and business investments rose at an 11.6% rate. But behind the robust numbers is a more sobering picture: the size of the gains in some of the economic areas are slowing down (see graph), and economists are calling this an economic cooling-off period.

Adding international stock exposure is one of the first steps toward a diversified portfolio. Even minimalist investors usually carve out a portion of their portfolios for non-US stocks as a supplement to domestic stocks and bonds. At this point, however, even committed globalists have to acknowledge that adding non-US equities has detracted from the returns of a US-only portfolio, even as it has modestly reduced risk. In the 2024 Diversification Landscape report that I recently completed with Amy Arnott and Karen Zaya, we found that foreign stocks’ correlation with the US market has also increased over the past three years.

Passing on the family wealth to children without also bestowing a sense of entitlement is a challenge for many affluent families. It can be a significant part of a financial advisor’s job to provide strategies and solutions to families in the hopes of avoiding the ill-effects of what’s known as affluenza.

The U.S. and (to a lesser extent) global equity markets continue to generate positive returns for investors, the bond market is settling down and the long-predicted recession keeps being moved back by the market pundits. It's almost easy to forget that bear markets ever happen, given the returns of last year and this year's first two quarter.

Not everybody makes contributions to donor-advised funds (DAFs), but the concept has become more popular with the expanded standard deduction. Many people who had been making donations to their favorite charity, whose overall deductions didn’t rise to the level of the standard deduction, suddenly found that their charitable contributions were no longer providing a tax benefit.

If you’re ever curious about what professional economists with access to huge troves of economic data think about the U.S. economy, you can turn to the Beige Book.  The Beige Book is published by the Federal Reserve every couple of months, and summarizes the state of the economy, overall and in each region.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has upended one of the most common aspects of executive employment, banning non-compete agreements as, in the words of the announcement, ‘an unfair method of competition.’ The ban covers everyone except senior executives who are in a ‘policy-making position,” for whom existing noncompetes will be grandfathered.

Every year around this time, the current presidential administration releases a set of tax-related proposals, essentially a wish list for tax legislation for the coming year. These so-called ‘green books’ are never passed in their entirety, but they offer a hint as to what kind of proposals will be working their way into and (possibly) through the next Congress.

It isn’t being widely reported, but aggregate U.S. corporate profits reached record levels in the 4th quarter of last year, increasing 4.1% after going up 3.4% the previous quarter. The net profit margin for companies in the Standard & Poor 500 index reached 10.7%, and the tech-heavy companies on the NASDAQ exchange reported a 23% aggregate profit over the fourth quarter.

Suppose you’ve been contributing to a 529 college savings plan, but your son or daughter doesn’t use all the money for tuition, books etc. Do you just ask for the remainder of your money back?

It’s not generally known that the number of publicly-traded stocks has fallen substantially, from more than 8,000 in 1996 to roughly 3,700 today. Does that mean that there are fewer companies today than there were three decades ago?

Search engine optimization (SEO) scams are targeting Schwab clients. Scammers are using search engine optimization (SEO) to create fake websites that appear in search results for trusted institutions like Schwab. When clients visit these sites, they are exposed to phishing attacks aimed at stealing their information and assets.

When Federal Reserve Board economists kept insisting that 2022’s inflation levels were ‘transitory,’ it sometimes elicited derisive laughter from reporters. But it turns out they were right. As the Covid pandemic eased and supply chain problems were worked out, inflation fell from 9% back down to more normal levels, even as wages and interest rates (normal drivers of inflation) ticked upward.

We’re all reading headlines telling us that the stock market has reached all-time highs, something that never happened in 2023. Many investors who have a worrisome mindset will think that means that there’s a high likelihood that we’ll see a downturn in the near future. The markets have nowhere to go but down from here, right?

Optimus Capital Advisors strives to provide our clients with a successful investment experience. That means more than just returns. It means offering peace of mind to investors that every investment decision is made in their best interest, tailored to meet their objectives, with no conflicts of interest, and a transparent process backed by decades of research powering every decision. For almost two decades we’ve seen the difference our approach has made in people’s lives. Our goal is to help people live better today, and in the years ahead.