Our mission is to help you Preserve Your Assets and Protect Your Lifestyle. In this month's newsletter, we provide a quarterly market review and give you tips on how to protect you and your financial information. In our, This is Life section we discuss how it is "never too late" to better you and your life. Enjoy!

Quarterly Market Review

Global stock markets continued to surge in the second quarter. Developed markets led the way, with the S&P 500 Index gaining 8.5% and developed international stocks gaining 5.7% (Vanguard FTSE Developed Markets ETF). Emerging-market (EM) stocks rose 4.9%, held back by mixed news on the COVID-19 front and a tightening in China’s financial conditions (Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets ETF).

In fixed-income markets, the 10-year Treasury yield dipped below 1.50% in June, ending the quarter at 1.45%, down from 1.75% at the end of March, despite higher inflation readings during the quarter. This contributed to a solid 2.0% return for the core bond index (Vanguard Total Bond Market ETF). However, core bonds are still down 1.6% for the year.

Click here to view the full market review. 

This Is Life

With Father’s Day last month, I spent some time thinking about my dad as I’m sure many of us did. He came to this great country in 1975 having immigrated from Vietnam as a war refugee. He was 42 years old and moved his entire family (my mom who was pregnant with me along with my nine older siblings – 3 brothers and 6 sisters) to a new land that he knew nothing about. Since I can remember, he would wake up early each morning to get his stretching and martial arts practice in as he was a third-degree black belt in Tae-Kwon-Do and did so daily into his 70s….dad was a bad, you know what.

Well a few months ago, he was having trouble walking and just not feeling himself and said he needed to go see the doctor….he never, ever says that. There were some extreme anxious moments in the family about where this was headed but luckily with some medical assistance, while still weak, dad was back home. Upon hearing this, an old friend of dad’s since they were in their 20s paid him a visit. Dad’s friend was doing pretty well physically and not having as many health issues as dad. While happy for his friend, dad took this as a challenge to start doing leg kicks while in bed, being better with his diet and slowly, but surely becoming more stable and independent. As the title of this goes, it’s never too late!

A client in his 70s recently told me he stopped eating processed foods/sugars and starches and has seen his eyesight and focus improve dramatically. I know that Pat is great with his Peloton, Casey with OrangeTheory and myself with some martial arts and weighted resistance bands. I can’t argue with the line “Take care of your body. It’s the only place you have to live.”

We encourage you to think about an area of your life you want to see improvement and remember it is never too late to get started!

Tips for Preventing Fraud

We take protecting you and your information very seriously. We know how devastating stolen information can be, not to mention the time and headache to address an incident. To help you protect you and your family, we have put together a short pdf that outlines Tips for Preventing Fraud. It addresses tips for anyone to consider and also discusses how to best protect your Charles Schwab accounts. We are always here to help you. Please contact us if you have any questions. Click here to view, Tips for Preventing Fraud.

We are here to help and offer objective advice. If you would like to discuss any of these topics or any questions relating to financial planning and/or the markets, please CLICK HERE and pick a time on our calendar.