I am very sure that readers of Forecasts & Trends are as diligent as I am in following the news. We hear every day about how expensive groceries, energy and housing have become. But for those of us who are empty nesters or with just a 1- or 2-person household, our family expenses have already been reduced as we approach retirement.

Even if we have paid off our primary residence and don’t drive as much, there’s an expense that has hit us particularly hard in the last year – insurance.

I am sure you have noticed that insuring your car and home has gotten horribly expensive. We will explore this today and give you a few ideas on how to reduce those costs.

The costs of hosting an Olympics are, in a word, extreme. To begin with, cities enter a bidding process with the International Olympic Committee (IOC). The bidding process alone can run into the billions. And of course, success is not guaranteed. Following a lengthy evaluation process, the IOC selects the host city generally six to eight years out from its games host date.

This week we review the FDIC Quarterly Banking Profile for First Quarter 2024. The report gives readers a peek at the health of U.S. banks and financial institutions. Besides an analysis of industry earnings, deposits and asset yields, the report displays troublesome trends in FDIC-insured banks, especially in the areas of credit card debt and commercial property loans.

These trends could put serious pressure on regional and community bank balance sheets, causing increased attention by the FDIC. But will banking regulators see a potential problem in time before that institution fails? Those who study the banking industry have their doubts.

Today our focus is on your retirement dollars. I hope to clear up the biggest myth about Social Security, inform you about protections for your retirement accounts and whether you should max out your 401k.

Market commentators can be heard warning of a concerted effort to “de-dollarize” the global economy. They point to the dollar’s declining usage in world trade and as a central bank reserve currency.

But is this reality or just a hyped-up myth? Today we examine why the US dollar is still the world’s reserve currency and why it will not be deposed from its top spot anytime soon.

The latest data on the fight against inflation arrived last Friday in the form of the Personal Consumption Expenditures index, the Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of inflation. We’ll take a quick look at those numbers, then follow with a guess of when the Fed will begin to cut interest rates.

Then on to economic concerns as they affect the U.S. presidential election. Finally, we’ll take a closer look at what could happen to the markets once rate cuts begin.

Let’s get started.

As a follow up to my previous article about the importance of Cybersecurity Awareness, let’s look at investment fraud committed against seniors. After completing a couple of continuing education courses on the subject, I became very aware of how rampant investment fraud has become.

Since I am also a senior, it honestly scared the heck out of me. It amazes me that there are people with no moral compass who are committing this fraud. It also saddens me that good people will fall for their scams. You should be on the alert for investment fraud, crypto scams and romance scams.

Folks, this problem is serious! Remember, if it is too good to be true, run from it!

For context, a yield curve is a graphical representation of the relationship between interest rates and bond yields of differing maturities. It illustrates the yield an investor can expect to earn on their money for a given period of time. The graph displays a bond’s yield on the vertical axis and the time to maturity across the horizontal axis.

Currently when you hear or read “The Yield Curve” it is referencing the relationship between the 10-year and two-year treasuries. Currently the relationship is inverted. That means that the yield on the 10-year instrument is less than the yield on the two-year instrument. This is not the “normal” relationship but is by no means unusual.  

I was tempted to write about the stunning May jobs report released last Friday. US employers added 272,000 nonfarm jobs in May, exceeding economist estimates of 190,000. However, the unemployment rate rose to 4%, the highest jobless level since January 2022. Economists had expected the rate to remain unchanged from April's 3.9%. 

The Federal Reserve meets this week, but don’t look for movement in the fed funds rate. These data again lower the likelihood of interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve until late 2024.

Instead let’s turn to the presidential election. Not the U.S. election, but the election that just concluded in Mexico. Claudia Sheinbaum (pron. SHANE-bowm) was elected in a landslide as the new president, and is the first female Mexican president.

We’ll meet the new president and take a look at the challenges ahead for her administration, policy towards the United States and the “nearshoring” of foreign companies in Mexico.

More and more people are asking us if a Roth IRA conversion is right for them. There are many considerations to understand, so today let’s take a look at what a Roth IRA conversion entails, the pluses and minuses of converting and some of the rules you need to know.

Please remember that the following is not specific advice on Roth IRA conversions but general information. Be sure to talk with your tax accountant and investment advisor before making a decision to convert.