How do you make your portfolio "greener" or "more sustainable?" The answer is subjective. Press the play button to learn more.

Analytical services that attempt to assist investors with choosing the right assets for a "green" portfolio seldom agree on what they’re measuring or which companies measure up — leaving the investor to throw a dart at the choices and hope for the best.

So, next on the horizon comes something called the Green Exchange, which would only list companies that follow a variety of ostensibly strict guidelines. The question is, would this platform help solidify the standards or would it be just another target on a crowded dart board? 

Disclosure Notice: The Wealth Conservatory® is a Registered Trade Mark of Comprehensive Planning Associates, Inc. - a Registered Investment Advisor with offices in New Hampshire, California, and Missouri. The Conservatory is not licensed to and does not engage in the practice of rendering legal or tax advice. Any discussion of either is for informational purposes only and you are strongly encouraged to seek appropriate counsel prior to taking action. The Conservatory and its representatives are in compliance with the current registration and notice filing requirements imposed upon SEC Registered Investment Advisors by those states in which the Conservatory maintains clients. The information contained herein should not be construed as personalized financial or investment advice unless the recipient has an executed and active client or member engagement with the Conservatory. The Wealth Conservatory® is a Registered Trademark of Comprehensive Planning Associates, Inc. Thank you.

By now you know that market timers and traders were spooked once again, causing a downward ripple across the U.S. investment markets. What startled them? Press the play button to find out.

The U.S. economy does seem to be experiencing a slowdown that could (emphasize could) lead to a recession. The problem for investors, though, is that the stock market tends to be a leading indicator of economic slowdowns, rather than something that follows on – meaning that, in the past, markets have recovered during recessions as investors start to see the light at the end of the tunnel. This makes predicting future market movements, using economic data, virtually impossible.

Plus, of course, predicting anything based on a startling of the herd of market timers and active traders is patently impossible. It’s natural to look at returns this year and want to stop the bleeding, but that would mean selling and taking the risk that the markets will suddenly startle in the opposite direction as traders and market timers experience a sudden fear of missing out on the next upward movement.

People who have the fortitude to stay invested when stocks are on sale tend to come out the other side with higher account balances. This can be seen on the historical return chart, which not only shows the steady, incremental rise in stock values due to the daily efforts of millions of workers in tens of thousands of companies, but also how unpredictably the timers and traders can move the markets in the short term.  Their impact is volatility and anxiety, not consistent wealth-building returns.

Disclosure Notice: The Wealth Conservatory® is a Registered Trade Mark of Comprehensive Planning Associates, Inc. - a Registered Investment Advisor with offices in New Hampshire, California, and Missouri. The Conservatory is not licensed to and does not engage in the practice of rendering legal or tax advice. Any discussion of either is for informational purposes only and you are strongly encouraged to seek appropriate counsel prior to taking action. The Conservatory and its representatives are in compliance with the current registration and notice filing requirements imposed upon SEC Registered Investment Advisors by those states in which the Conservatory maintains clients. The information contained herein should not be construed as personalized financial or investment advice unless the recipient has an executed and active client or member engagement with the Conservatory. The Wealth Conservatory® is a Registered Trademark of Comprehensive Planning Associates, Inc. Thank you.

Not to belabor the obvious, but boy, the market sure is taking a real beating these days. Maybe that’s not such a bad thing? Press the play button to find out why.

Currently, we are collectively suffering an economic illness. To cure it, we're taking our medicine, which truly tastes awful. But anybody who has come down with a bug and taken medicine to cure it knows that the former unpleasantness doesn’t last forever, and therefore, neither does the latter.  

To be more specific, what’s happening right now is inflation, which absolutely has to be cured if we are to experience a healthy economic life. The cure, which may in the moment feel more unpleasant than the illness itself, is the U.S. Federal Reserve raising interest rates. If you're worried about what this decision might lead to, remember that recessions act like a cleansing mechanism. They expose and eliminate waste and inefficiency, ultimately creating a healthier economy when we come out the other end.

Disclosure Notice: The Wealth Conservatory® is a Registered Trade Mark of Comprehensive Planning Associates, Inc. - a Registered Investment Advisor with offices in New Hampshire, California, and Missouri. The Conservatory is not licensed to and does not engage in the practice of rendering legal or tax advice. Any discussion of either is for informational purposes only and you are strongly encouraged to seek appropriate counsel prior to taking action. The Conservatory and its representatives are in compliance with the current registration and notice filing requirements imposed upon SEC Registered Investment Advisors by those states in which the Conservatory maintains clients. The information contained herein should not be construed as personalized financial or investment advice unless the recipient has an executed and active client or member engagement with the Conservatory. The Wealth Conservatory® is a Registered Trademark of Comprehensive Planning Associates, Inc. Thank you.

Planning a vacation this fall? Go ahead and press the play button first.

Booking your flight now might be the right idea. Demand is down, so airfares are also down, with ticket experts saying they’ve seen across-the-board reductions.

Why not wait for prices to go down even further? Airlines are cutting their capacity, creating less choice and fewer seats all the way through November. Plus, there is a pilot shortage that will make it hard to restore capacity if demand picks back up. Not to mention that fuel costs may rise again.

In the audio clip, I also discuss the Concorde of the past and Boom Supersonic airplanes of the future. But don’t plan on traveling faster than the speed of sound this fall. These new planes likely won’t enter commercial service until the end of the decade.

Disclosure Notice: The Wealth Conservatory® is a Registered Trade Mark of Comprehensive Planning Associates, Inc. - a Registered Investment Advisor with offices in New Hampshire, California, and Missouri. The Conservatory is not licensed to and does not engage in the practice of rendering legal or tax advice. Any discussion of either is for informational purposes only and you are strongly encouraged to seek appropriate counsel prior to taking action. The Conservatory and its representatives are in compliance with the current registration and notice filing requirements imposed upon SEC Registered Investment Advisors by those states in which the Conservatory maintains clients. The information contained herein should not be construed as personalized financial or investment advice unless the recipient has an executed and active client or member engagement with the Conservatory. The Wealth Conservatory® is a Registered Trademark of Comprehensive Planning Associates, Inc. Thank you.