In this week’s stock market outlook, Joel Wenger examines the current market trend, price performance, and headline risks.

Don’t miss an episode of our podcast, Personal Finance for Long-Term Investors. Available on all podcast players. Here’s the latest episode: It got up to 85 degrees here in Rochester last week (that’s Fahrenheit, to anyone concerned…or about 30 Celsius). We fired up our grill and ate dinner on the back deck. We filled the kiddie pool for our daughter. One or two people even complained it was too hot — tough criticism coming off the frigid winter. But then this weekend arrived. 48 degrees, gray skies, a cold rain that reminded us, “It’s not summer yet.” And then they said it. They always say it. They have always said it and will always say it. “I just can’t believe this weather! It won’t make up its mind!” You’ve lived in upstate New York your whole life. This is exactly what May does. Every May past, every May future. There is not a single year on record in which the weather politely stayed in its lane and transitioned smoothly and linearly from one season to the next. The whiplash is the weather. It’s not a bug or a one-off. This is it! Yet, somehow, it continually surprises us. Markets Work the Same Way Long-term investors spend decades building their portfolios. They’ve lived through bull markets and bear markets, corrections and crashes, “irrational exuberance” and scary panics. Even if we’re newer investors, the history is there for all of us to learn from. And the message is clear: volatility is not a flaw in the system; it is the system. But when the market drops 15% in 6 weeks, the typical response involves surprise, shock, fear. “I can’t believe what’s happening.” Financial media goes into emergency mode. Investors who were perfectly calm at Christmas enter a full-blown existential crisis by Valentine’s Day. But this is just…investing. This is exactly what markets do. They have always done this. We don’t get an uninterrupted, linear 10% growth per year. That has never existed over any meaningful stretch of time. The turbulence is investing. This is Us (and Our Brains) The lesson isn’t that people are foolish. It’s that memory is short and emotions are loud. When things are good, a slow unconscious simmer grows in our heads: “This is the new normal; things will always be this good…” Then, when the music stops (which it always eventually does), it registers as an aberration. An unexpected abnormality. A shock. Even though we should know it’s simply the unavoidable swing of a pendulum that has never once stopped moving. What’s the solution? It’s not a crystal ball. Never was, never will be. Nobody knows when the cold snap is coming or exactly when the bull run ends. Instead, the antidote is expectation. We need to build a mindset and a plan that already accounts for the swings before they

This post is based on a pivotal episode of the Money is Emotional podcast, titled “Money: From Sacrilege to Sacrament.” This is the story of my spiritual evolution with money, one that I’ve hinted at over the past few months: That I’m ready to unapologetically bring my spirituality front and center alongside the money.  Money as Sacrilege For the first 30 years of my life, I had both a fear and a desire for money. Why? I desired money because I knew firsthand that the lack of it caused stress and suffering. As an accountant, I enjoyed managing money and being well paid for it. Life with money felt much better than life without it. But in church, I got the message that money was dangerous and maybe God didn’t want me to have too much of it. Like me, maybe you heard messages like these: “The love of money is the root of all evil.” “It’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of the needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God.”  “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” “God doesn’t prosper you to raise your standard of living. He prospers you to raise your standard of giving.”  I got the message that possessing money beyond my needs was greedy, dirty, bad, and wrong. In other words, sacrilegious. In my mind, money and spirituality were like oil and water. You either have one or the other. And of course, being the Christian Good Girl, I chose God. Money as Secular Then things began to shift. I started viewing money not as sacrilege but as secular. Not as evil, but simply neutral. I have Dave Ramsey to thank for that, because my foray into teaching others about money began with his Financial Peace University. It’s a live group course about money management taught in churches around the country. The church accountant recruited me to be her assistant for the class because she knew I had gone through the wringer financially and come out the other side. After a few years, I became the person in charge of the Financial Peace University program at my church. All in all, I taught the class as a volunteer twice a year for 10 years.  Dave Ramsey’s philosophy that money is NOT evil really stuck with me. Honestly, he was one of the few Christian leaders who said, “Money is not evil; it’s neutral.” He used the analogy of a brick to explain this concept in Financial Peace University. It went something like this: “A brick is just a brick. It doesn’t care what you do with it. You can take a brick and use it to build an orphanage. Or you can take that same brick, throw it through a plate-glass window, and rob a jewelry store. You

If you are new to credit, you may feel stuck in a frustrating cycle: you need credit to qualify for loans, apartments, or even some jobs — but lenders often want you to already have credit history before approving you. Building credit for beginners can be challenging, but this guide will help you get started fast. The good news is that building credit from scratch is completely possible, and one of the safest and easiest ways to start is by learning how to build credit with a secured credit card. Whether you are a college student, recent graduate, young adult, immigrant, or someone rebuilding after financial hardship, this guide will walk you through everything you need to know about building credit for beginners. By the end of this article, you will understand: What credit scores are and why they matter How secured credit cards work How to use a secured card responsibly The fastest ways to build good credit habits Common mistakes that hurt beginners How long it takes to build credit What to do after your credit improves Let’s get started. Why Building Credit Matters Your credit score is one of the most important financial numbers in your life. It affects your ability to: Get approved for apartments Qualify for car loans Buy a home Get lower interest rates Open utility accounts Qualify for premium credit cards Sometimes even get certain jobs A higher credit score can literally save you thousands of dollars over time. For example, someone with excellent credit may qualify for a mortgage rate that is significantly lower than someone with poor credit. Over a 30-year mortgage, that difference could mean paying tens of thousands less in interest. That is why learning how to build credit for beginners is such an important financial skill. What Is a Credit Score? A credit score is a number that tells lenders how likely you are to repay borrowed money responsibly. Most credit scores range from 300 to 850. Here is a general breakdown: Credit ScoreRating300–579Poor580–669Fair670–739Good740–799Very Good800–850Excellent The two most common scoring models are: FICO Score VantageScore Both models look at similar factors. The Main Factors That Affect Your Credit Score 1. Payment History (Most Important) Paying your bills on time is the single biggest factor in your score. 2. Credit Utilization This measures how much of your available credit you are using. For example: Credit limit: $500 Balance: $100 Utilization: 20% Experts generally recommend keeping utilization below 30%, and under 10% is even better. 3. Length of Credit History Older accounts help your score. 4. New Credit Applications Applying for too many accounts in a short period can lower your score temporarily. 5. Credit Mix Having different types of accounts (credit cards, loans, mortgages) can help over time. What Is a Secured Credit Card? A secured credit card is a special type of credit card designed for people with no credit or poor credit. Unlike a traditional credit

Save, invest, prosper with My Own Advisor. There is no perfect portfolio While the financial industry often tries to sell a “holy grail” on asset allocation, I’m pretty convinced now in my own DIY investing journey there is no single, universally-accepted perfect portfolio. Today’s post unpacks that notion a bit thanks in part to this recent post by Ben Carlson: Creating the… Early retiree thanks to DIY investing in stocks and ETFs. The article There […]

Most retirees spend decades preparing for retirement taxes, but many never spend much time thinking about what happens to those taxes after they are gone. Early in retirement, the focus is usually on generating sustainable income and keeping taxes manageable each year. But for households likely to leave assets behind, the planning process eventually starts to shift.   As the focus moves towards leaving a legacy for your loved ones, tax planning becomes more about […]

The Short Version: The rental property that ticked every box on a popular checklist and still bled cash… and why that’s more common than people admit The category of costs that never appears on a proforma but consistently destroys real estate returns Why simple rules work in the conditions they were built for and fall apart the moment those conditions change What experienced investors use instead of rules of thumb… and how to start building that same judgment Many years ago, I bought a rental property that passed the 2% rule. For those unfamiliar, the 2% rule is a shorthand used by real estate investors: if the monthly rent is at least 2% of the purchase price, the deal cash flows. Simple, fast, easy to apply. The property I bought cleared that threshold comfortably. On paper, the numbers worked. In reality, I lost money on it. I’ve written about this on BiggerPockets recently, and the reaction told me something: a lot of investors have had a version of this experience, and most of them quietly absorbed the loss without understanding what actually went wrong. So let me explain it clearly, because the lesson here matters more than the specific rule. What the 2% Rule Is Actually Doing Rules of thumb in real estate exist for a reason. They give new investors a quick filter. Instead of analyzing every property in depth, you can run a fast calculation and immediately eliminate deals that won’t work. The 2% rule came out of a specific era in real estate investing, in specific markets, under specific conditions. When properties were cheaper and rehab costs were lower and certain categories of expense were more predictable, 2% rent-to-price was a reasonable proxy for cash flow viability. The rule was never meant to be the last word. It was a first filter. Somewhere along the way, a lot of investors started treating it as a conclusion. The Costs That Don’t Show Up on Paper Here’s what the 2% rule doesn’t capture, and what my property taught me the expensive way. Property location affects tenant quality. Not as a moral judgment, but as a practical reality. Lower-income neighborhoods produce higher tenant turnover. Higher turnover means more vacancies, more rehab between tenants, more advertising costs, more property management labor. None of this shows up when you run the 2% calculation. Location also affects the quality of property managers available to you. Skilled property managers are selective. They gravitate toward properties where the math works for them too. In rougher neighborhoods, you end up with the managers who couldn’t attract better clients. I learned this lesson in Baltimore, buying in areas where I couldn’t find a competent, reliable property manager regardless of how hard I looked. There’s also what I’d call the invisible expense category: things that don’t appear on any proforma because they’re impossible to predict in advance. Copper stripped from AC units. Appliances walked out of vacant units. Good

Digital platform security is one of Soft2Bet’s core priorities. To achieve this, the company employs modern data protection technologies, management tools, and real-time activity monitoring systems. Soft2Bet carefully plans and selects the most effective digital security principles and approaches to user protection. Therefore, technological solutions play a key role in ensuring the stable and secure operation of iGaming services. Security in Digital Products Security plays a crucial role in digital products. Security issues are particularly […]