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“I once had a client tell me his goal was to die with just enough money to pay his very last doctor’s bill,” says CAPTRUST Financial Advisor Mike Gray. Even though the comment was made in jest, the client was serious about not exhausting his money too soon. Gray says this is a common concern.

Question: What impact do you foresee the 2024 presidential election having on stock market returns this year? How much do elections matter to markets?

We all know people who have made less-than-rational investment decisions, like pulling out of the stock market during a downturn or continuing to fund expensive repairs for a battered but beloved car.

No matter how sophisticated their investment knowledge, investors of all kinds are prone to make suboptimal choices, second-guess long-term decisions based on short-term occurrences, and lose sleep over investment portfolios. These are natural and understandable behaviors, but they’re rooted in a faulty assumption: that all dollars have equal value.

In 2023, consensus expectations proved wildly incorrect. Most market watchers predicted a recession, but the economy showed resilience instead. Today, a soft landing has become the expected scenario for 2024. But last year’s lessons are still true, and a soft landing is no sure thing.

In this edition of our quarterly Market Update video, Chief Investment Officer Mike Vogelzang discusses three long-term trends that are already shaping investment strategies today: demographics, deglobalization, and digital transformation. Watch to learn how these trends are impacting the markets and economy today, and what CAPTRUST is watching as we look into the future.

In 2022, more than 2.4 million people became the victims of financial fraud, losing a total of nearly $8.8 billion, according to the Federal TradeCommission. People of all ages lost money, but the amount was highest for people over 50, and it increased in correlation with the victims’ ages. In other words—and not surprisingly—as we age, we are more likely to be taken advantage of financially.

As the U.S. debt ceiling takes over the headlines, this article explains the most likely result from Congress and what investors should know to prepare.

Despite dramatic headlines this quarter, markets have delivered modest results. These returns could suggest normal and steady conditions. But, like a game of tug-of-war, there are massive, countervailing forces at work on both sides of the rope, even if the flag in the middle barely seems to move.