"GREXIT" VOTE COMING

Any way you look at it, the standoff between the nation of Greece and the leaders of the European Union is a mess.  But it may not be quite the problem that the press is making it out to be. In case you haven't been following the story, the gist of it is that the Greek government, over a period of years that included the time it hosted the Summer Olympics, issued more bonds than, in retrospect, it could possibly pay back.  The total debt outstanding peaked at somewhere around $340 billion, which is actually more than the $242 billion in goods and services that the entire Greek economy produces in a year.   You've no doubt heard about a series of bailouts organized by the European Union, the International Monetary Fund and other groups which have collectively extended loans and extensions amounting to $217 billion to date.  As you can see from Figure 2, on the right-hand side, roughly $4 billion in payments are due in July and more than $3 billion in August, after which time the payment schedule becomes somewhat more forgiving through 2022. There are three problems with this picture.  First, it has become apparent that Greece doesn't have the money to make the July and August payments.  Second, in return for additional debt relief, the various creditors are asking that the Greek government do more than just balance its budget (which it has).  Their demands seem a bit harsh and somewhat picky when they're organized in a list: Greece would have to reduce pension payments to current and retired workers by 40%, raise the retirement age to 67 in 2022 rather than 2025, phase out supplemental bonuses for poorer retirees in 2017 rather than 2018, and cut back on early retirement immediately.  (The proposals also include additional taxes on consumers but not businesses.) And third: the newly-elected Greek government, led by Alexis Tsipras of the Syriza party, ran on a platform of rejecting any further budget concessions and compromises.  This turned out to be an extremely successful political strategy: the party won 149 out of the 300 seats in the Greek Parliament in what is regarded as a rousing popular mandate. Negotiations predictably broke down, and now the Syriza leaders are asking the Greek citizens to vote on whether they will accept the or reject the austerity measures that the EU creditors are demanding.  Polls suggest that the voters would like to keep their country in the Eurozone but that they oppose any additional budget reductions.  In other words, nobody knows how the referendum will end.  If the citizens of Greece reject austerity, it will present the European Union with a difficult choice: back down and continue to help Greece ease out of the crisis (which would be politically difficult to sell, especially to German voters), or deny the concessions that Greece needs, and effectively force Greece out of the Eurozone. If the latter happens, then the future becomes a bit murky.  Greek banks have been shut down in advance of the July 5 vote, strongly suggesting that Greek leaders, holding a "no"vote, would no longer use the euro as its currency. They would print drachmas, which, in those frozen bank accounts, would replace euros at par.  The drachmas would immediately lose value on the international markets, which would allow Greece to undercut its competitors in the export markets.  Meanwhile, Greece could default on all or portions of its debt, and offer to pay drachmas instead. Who loses in this scenario?  Everybody.  The European banks holding Greek debt, and private investors, are the obvious losers.  But closer to home, any Greek citizen who didn't get his/her money out of the bank before the freeze will have to accept a haircut on the deposits, as drachmas will inevitably be worth less than euros. At the same time, many Greek banks are holding massive amounts of Greek government debt, which they need as collateral for European Central Bank loans that are keeping THEM (the banks) afloat.  Alternatively, Greece could offer everyone 50-70 cents on the dollar in debt repayments, and would probably get mostly takers from creditors who would like to put this whole saga behind them. Do YOU lose in any of these scenarios?  If either side blinks, then the situation goes back to business as usual.  If Greek voters agree to give the EU what it wants, then some economists believe that the Greek economy will go into a steep recession, but your personal exposure to Greek companies is almost certainly minimal, and the problem will be temporary. If Greek voters vote "no,"the EU negotiators remain intractable and Greece leaves the Eurozone, then you can expect breathless and sometimes scary headlines and short-term turmoil in European stocks, with some investors panicking and others uncertain.  But the smart money says that the Eurozone is strong enough to sustain the loss of one of its smallest economies, and Greece, too, will survive. The irony, which nobody seems to have noticed, is that after accepting many of the earlier austerity measures, the Greek government is actually running a budget surplus without the debt payments-something U.S. citizens can only dream of.  If the additional austerity measures do, eventually, get put in place, the subsequent recession would reduce tax receipts and push Greece back into deficits again. If you're a Greek citizen who hit the ATM machines after they had run out of money, then this is a pretty big crisis for your long-term financial situation.  Otherwise, like most so-called "crises,"the possibility of a "Grexit"and the upcoming special election in Greece is more about entertainment than about making or losing money in your long-term portfolio. Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Greece http://confluenceinvestment.com/assets/docs/2015/daily_Jun_29_2015.pdf http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-02-03/who-owns-greek-debt-and-when-it-due http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/06/25/europe-strikes-back-it-seems-to-be-trying-to-push-greece-out-of-the-euro/

Sincerely, Bill Morrissey, CFP® and Tammy Prouty, CFP® Sound Financial Planning, Inc. Primary Office 425 Commercial St., Ste 203 Mount Vernon, WA 98273 Phone: (360) 336-6527 info@soundfinancialplanning.net Secondary Office 650 Mullis St., Ste 101 Friday Harbor, WA 98250 (360) 378-3022 www.soundfinancialplanning.net PLEASE READ THIS WARNING: All e-mail sent to or from this address will be received or otherwise recorded by the Sound Financial Planning, Inc. corporate e-mail system and is subject to archival, monitoring and/or review, by and/or disclosure to, someone other than the recipient. This message is intended only for the use of the person(s) ("intended recipient") to whom it is addressed. It may contain information that is privileged and confidential. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender as soon as possible and delete the message without reading it or making a copy. Any dissemination, distribution, copying, or other use of this message or any of its content by any person other than the intended recipient is strictly prohibited. Sound Financial Planning, Inc. has taken precautions to screen this message for viruses, but we cannot guarantee that it is virus free nor are we responsible for any damage that may be caused by this message. Sound Financial Planning, Inc. only transacts business in states where it is properly registered or notice filed, or excluded or exempted from registration requirements. Follow-up and individualized responses that involve either the effecting or attempting to effect transactions in securities or the rendering of personalized investment advice for compensation, as the case may be, will not be made absent compliance with state investment adviser and investment adviser representative registration requirements, or an applicable exemption or exclusion. This information should not be construed as investment advice. All information is believed to be from reliable sources; however, we make no representation as to its completeness or accuracy. WE WOULD LIKE TO CREDIT THIS ARTICLE'S CONTENT TO BOB VERES.

THE NEW GRADUAL RETIREMENT

The New Gradual Retirement Working a little (or a lot) after 60 may become the norm. Do we really want to retire at 65? Not according to the latest annual retirement survey from the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies which gauges the outlook of American workers. It found that 51% of us plan to work part-time once retired. Moreover, 64% of workers 60 and older wanted to work at least a little after 65 and 18% had no intention of retiring.1     Are financial needs shaping these responses? Not entirely. While 61% of all those polled in the Transamerica survey cited income and employer-sponsored health benefits as major reasons to stay employed in the "third act" of life, 34% of respondents said they wanted to keep working because they enjoy their occupation or like the social and mental engagement of the workplace.1   It seems "retirement" and "work" are no longer mutually exclusive. Not all of us have sufficiently large retirement nest eggs, so we strive to stay employed - to let our savings compound a little more, and to leave us with fewer years of retirement to fund. We want to keep working into our mid-sixties because of two other realities as well. If you are a baby boomer and you retire before age 66 (or 67, in the case of those born 1960 and later), your monthly Social Security benefits will be smaller than if you had worked until full retirement age. Additionally, we can qualify for Medicare at age 65.2,3   We are sometimes cautioned that working too much in retirement may result in our Social Security benefits being taxed - but is there really such a thing as "too much" retirement income? Income aside, there is another question we all face as retirement approaches. How much control will we have over our retirement transition? In the Transamerica survey, 41% of respondents saw themselves making a gradual entry into retirement, shifting from full-time employment to part-time employment or another kind of work in their sixties.1       Is that thinking realistic? It may or may not be. A recent Gallup survey of retirees found that 67% had left the workforce before age 65; just 18% had managed to work longer. Recent research from the Employee Benefit Retirement Institute fielded roughly the same results: 14% of retirees kept working after 65 and about half had been forced to stop working earlier than they planned due to layoffs, health issues or elder care responsibilities.3     If you do want to make a gradual retirement transition, what might help you do it? First of all, work on maintaining your health. The second priority: maintain and enhance your skill set, so that your prospects for employment in your sixties are not reduced by separation from the latest technologies. Keep networking. Think about Plan B: if you are unable to continue working in your chosen career even part-time, what prospects might you have for creating income through financial decisions, self-employment or in other lines of work? How can you reduce your monthly expenses?   Easing out of work & into retirement may be the new normal. Pessimistic analysts contend that many baby boomers will not be able to keep working past 65, no matter their aspirations. They may be wrong - just as this active, ambitious generation has changed America, it may also change the definition of retirement.   Sources: 1 - forbes.com/sites/laurashin/2015/05/05/why-the-new-retirement-involves-working-past-65/ [5/5/15] 2 - ssa.gov/retire2/agereduction.htm [6/11/15] 3 - money.usnews.com/money/blogs/planning-to-retire/2015/05/22/how-to-pick-the-optimal-retirement-age [5/22/15]

Sincerely, Bill Morrissey, CFP® and Tammy Prouty, CFP® Sound Financial Planning, Inc. Primary Office 425 Commercial St., Ste 203 Mount Vernon, WA 98273 Phone: (360) 336-6527 info@soundfinancialplanning.net Secondary Office 650 Mullis St., Ste 101 Friday Harbor, WA 98250 (360) 378-3022 www.soundfinancialplanning.net PLEASE READ THIS WARNING: All e-mail sent to or from this address will be received or otherwise recorded by the Sound Financial Planning, Inc. corporate e-mail system and is subject to archival, monitoring and/or review, by and/or disclosure to, someone other than the recipient. This message is intended only for the use of the person(s) ("intended recipient") to whom it is addressed. It may contain information that is privileged and confidential. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender as soon as possible and delete the message without reading it or making a copy. Any dissemination, distribution, copying, or other use of this message or any of its content by any person other than the intended recipient is strictly prohibited. Sound Financial Planning, Inc. has taken precautions to screen this message for viruses, but we cannot guarantee that it is virus free nor are we responsible for any damage that may be caused by this message. Sound Financial Planning, Inc. only transacts business in states where it is properly registered or notice filed, or excluded or exempted from registration requirements. Follow-up and individualized responses that involve either the effecting or attempting to effect transactions in securities or the rendering of personalized investment advice for compensation, as the case may be, will not be made absent compliance with state investment adviser and investment adviser representative registration requirements, or an applicable exemption or exclusion. This information should not be construed as investment advice. All information is believed to be from reliable sources; however, we make no representation as to its completeness or accuracy. WE WOULD LIKE TO CREDIT THIS ARTICLE'S CONTENT TO MARKETING PRO INC.

MUCH ADO ABOUT ABSOLUTELY NOTHING

Maybe you saw the alarming headline in the middle of the other stories on Yahoo! News, which told you that the U.S. dollar was about to collapse, as a result of H.R. 2847-or, sometimes, simply "the new currency law."  Write down this date, the frightening article said: July 1, 2014. More recently, you might have see/heard TV and radio advertisements or ubiquitous Internet warnings where Dr. Ron Paul urgently reveals "a real currency crisis"that will usher in the greatest economic meltdown this country has seen in 50 years-including civil unrest, pension fund collapses, the erosion of personal liberties, bank and brokerage closings and mass rejection of the U.S. dollar in favor of "non-paper alternatives."   In case you were wondering, the U.S. dollar did not collapse in July of last year, nor did it collapse in 2009, which is when Ron Paul began predicting doomsday.  But if you watch the 54-minute Ron Paul infomercial, you will eventually be offered a "survival blueprint"published by Stansberry & Associates Investment Research-interestingly, the same company that told us that the U.S. currency would melt down last year.  To avoid financial armageddon, you simply need to pay $49.50. Who is Stansberry & Associates?  The owner and publisher is Frank Porter Stansberry, who, among his credentials, has been prosecuted by the Securities & Exchange Commission for investment fraud, and fined $1.5 million for selling $1,000 reports with information that a panel of judges determined that he knew not to be true.  Using the pseudonym "Jay McDaniel,"Stansberry offered a "Super Insider Tip"telling gullible investors that on May 14, 2002, there would be a major announcement which would instantly double their money.  As it turned out, the uranium processing company that was being touted in the $1,000 report made no significant announcement on the date in question, and in fact investors testified that they lost 20-25% of their investment portfolio after purchasing the stock and options. In the judge's opinion, "The gravity of the harm in this case is not limited to the amount of money each purchaser spent for the Special Report.  Approximately 1,217 investors bought the Special Report with the expectations, as promised, by the Super Insider Solicitation."  Stansberry and his publisher were enjoyed from conducting any additional "deliberate fraud."  An investigative website also notes that he predicted the demise of AT&T, General Motors, the FNMA quasi-governmental guarantor of mortgages, Continental Airlines and GeneralElectric.  One thing these predictions have in common with the prediction of the collapse of the dollar: they never happened.  In 2011, Stansberry's online infomercial predicted "The End of America,"and also that Germany would leave the European Union.  To our knowledge, those things haven't happened yet either. In case you were wondering, H.R. 2847 is a provision that requires Americans living abroad to comply with tighter reporting requirements on their offshore income-and has very little to do with anything related to the dollar. Predicting disaster is a reliable way to make money, because the human mind is wired to pay more attention to threats than to the more benign elements in our environment.  In the future, you'll probably see Stansberry predicting all sorts of other scary things, and probably a few more "can't miss"investment opportunities.  What you won't see is any clear accounting of his track record. Write down this date about the collapse of America, the extinction of the dollar, the demise of senior members of the Fortune 500, the total breakup of the European Union and a great chance to double your money in a day: Not on Porter Stansberry's timetable. Sources: http://briandeer.com/vaxgen/stansberry-fraud.htm http://thecrux.com/porter-stansberry-predicts-the-next-major-company-to-go-bust/ http://wealthymatters.com/2011/09/20/porter-stansberry/ http://thecrux.com/dyncontent/ron-paul-one-step-prepare/?cid=MKT033949&eid=MKT057529 http://www.snopes.com/politics/conspiracy/hr2847.asp

Sincerely, Bill Morrissey, CFP® and Tammy Prouty, CFP® Sound Financial Planning, Inc. Primary Office 425 Commercial St., Ste 203 Mount Vernon, WA 98273 Phone: (360) 336-6527 info@soundfinancialplanning.net Secondary Office 650 Mullis St., Ste 101 Friday Harbor, WA 98250 (360) 378-3022 www.soundfinancialplanning.net PLEASE READ THIS WARNING: All e-mail sent to or from this address will be received or otherwise recorded by the Sound Financial Planning, Inc. corporate e-mail system and is subject to archival, monitoring and/or review, by and/or disclosure to, someone other than the recipient. This message is intended only for the use of the person(s) ("intended recipient") to whom it is addressed. It may contain information that is privileged and confidential. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender as soon as possible and delete the message without reading it or making a copy. Any dissemination, distribution, copying, or other use of this message or any of its content by any person other than the intended recipient is strictly prohibited. Sound Financial Planning, Inc. has taken precautions to screen this message for viruses, but we cannot guarantee that it is virus free nor are we responsible for any damage that may be caused by this message. Sound Financial Planning, Inc. only transacts business in states where it is properly registered or notice filed, or excluded or exempted from registration requirements. Follow-up and individualized responses that involve either the effecting or attempting to effect transactions in securities or the rendering of personalized investment advice for compensation, as the case may be, will not be made absent compliance with state investment adviser and investment adviser representative registration requirements, or an applicable exemption or exclusion. This information should not be construed as investment advice. All information is believed to be from reliable sources; however, we make no representation as to its completeness or accuracy. WE WOULD LIKE TO CREDIT THIS ARTICLE'S CONTENT TO BOB VERES.

Money in the (Foreign) Bank

You might have been reading worrisome comments in the financial press that corporate profits have come down from their highs, in part because unemployment is coming down and the labor markets are getting tighter.  None of this is really bad news, or particularly surprising, despite the breathless spin in the financial press and cable financial programs. But does that mean that Corporate America will be starved for cash?  Hardly.  A recent report by The Economist notes that U.S. non-financial companies-including technology, consumer products, energy and health care firms-are collectively holding $1.73 trillion (with a "t") in cash.  That's more than the total gross domestic product of all but 11 countries around the world, and roughly 10% of the total gross domestic product of the American economy. You might not see that money recycled into the American economy any time soon, however.  Moody's Investor Services estimates that 64% of the total (roughly $1.1 trillion) is being held overseas.  The Economist reports that many companies are taking advantage of cheap borrowing costs in the U.S. to fund their business operations and expansions, meanwhile avoiding U.S. taxes on the money held abroad.  This does mean, however, that if/when interest rates rise as the economy grows and companies need to expand their operations to take advantage, there will be available cash, and the higher borrowing rates may not have a significant impact on Corporate America's bottom line. Sources: http://www.economist.com/news/economic-and-financial-indicators/21651211-treasure-chests http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)

Sincerely, Bill Morrissey, CFP® and Tammy Prouty, CFP® Sound Financial Planning, Inc. Primary Office 425 Commercial St., Ste 203 Mount Vernon, WA 98273 Phone: (360) 336-6527 info@soundfinancialplanning.net Secondary Office 650 Mullis St., Ste 101 Friday Harbor, WA 98250 (360) 378-3022 www.soundfinancialplanning.net PLEASE READ THIS WARNING: All e-mail sent to or from this address will be received or otherwise recorded by the Sound Financial Planning, Inc. corporate e-mail system and is subject to archival, monitoring and/or review, by and/or disclosure to, someone other than the recipient. This message is intended only for the use of the person(s) ("intended recipient") to whom it is addressed. It may contain information that is privileged and confidential. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender as soon as possible and delete the message without reading it or making a copy. Any dissemination, distribution, copying, or other use of this message or any of its content by any person other than the intended recipient is strictly prohibited. Sound Financial Planning, Inc. has taken precautions to screen this message for viruses, but we cannot guarantee that it is virus free nor are we responsible for any damage that may be caused by this message. Sound Financial Planning, Inc. only transacts business in states where it is properly registered or notice filed, or excluded or exempted from registration requirements. Follow-up and individualized responses that involve either the effecting or attempting to effect transactions in securities or the rendering of personalized investment advice for compensation, as the case may be, will not be made absent compliance with state investment adviser and investment adviser representative registration requirements, or an applicable exemption or exclusion. This information should not be construed as investment advice. All information is believed to be from reliable sources; however, we make no representation as to its completeness or accuracy. WE WOULD LIKE TO CREDIT THIS ARTICLE'S CONTENT TO BOB VERES.

THE RANSOMWARE THREAT

Cybercrime has reached a new level.    Imagine cybercriminals holding your files for ransom. It sounds like something out of a movie set in the distant future, but business owners and households are facing such a threat today. Hackers are now using ransomware to hijack computers and hold files hostage in exchange for payment. Malware programs like CryptoWall, CryptoLocker and CoinVault spring into action when you unsuspectingly click on a link in an email, encrypting all of the data on your hard drive in seconds. A "ransom note" appears telling you that you need to pay $500 (or more) to access your files again. If you fail to pay soon, they will be destroyed.1 Worldwide, more than a million computer users have been threatened by ransomware - individuals, small businesses, even a county sheriff's department in Tennessee. The initial version of CryptoLocker alone victimized 500,000 users, generating more than $3 million in payments along the way.2,3   The earliest ransomware demanded payments via prepaid debit cards, but hackers now prefer payment in bitcoin, even though few households or businesses have bitcoin wallets. (The emergence of bitcoin effectively aided the rise of ransomware; keeping the payment in virtual currency is a hacker's dream.)2,3 If your files are held hostage, should you pay the ransom? The Department of Homeland Security and most computer security analysts say no, because it may be pointless. By the time you get the note, your files may already be destroyed - that is, encrypted so deeply that you will never be able to read them again. Some people do pay a ransom and get their data back. As for prosecuting the crooks, that is a tall order. Much of this malware is launched overseas using Tor, an anonymous online network. That makes it difficult to discern who the victim is as well as the attacker - if one of your workers thoughtlessly clicks on a ransomware link, you cannot find, scold or even help that employee any more than you could locate the hacker behind the extortion.3 How do you guard against a ransomware attack? No one is absolutely immune from this, but there are some precautions you should take. First, back up your data frequently - and make sure that the storage volumes are not connected to your computer(s). Cloud storage or a flash drive that always stays in one of your computer's USB ports is inadequate. If you back up your files regularly enough, weathering a ransomware attack becomes easier.3 Keep your anti-virus software renewed and up to date. Those alerts you receive about the latest updates? Heed them. Never click on a mysterious link or attachment. This is common knowledge, but bears repeating - because even after years of warnings, enough people still click on mysterious links and attachments to keep malware profitable. Ransomware is a kind of cyberterrorism. This is why the Department of Homeland Security issues warnings about it. When you deal with terrorists, playing hardball has its virtues. As Symantec Security Response director Kevin Haley told NBC News: "If none of us paid the ransom, these guys would go out of business."2   Citations. 1 - rackspace.com/blog/dont-be-held-hostage-by-ransomware-hackers/ [1/15/15] 2 - nbcnews.com/nightly-news/security-experts-you-should-never-pay-ransomware-hackers-n299511 [2/4/15] 3 - tinyurl.com/n3rcrsm [12/8/14]

Sincerely, Bill Morrissey, CFP® and Tammy Prouty, CFP® Sound Financial Planning, Inc. Primary Office 425 Commercial St., Ste 203 Mount Vernon, WA 98273 Phone: (360) 336-6527 info@soundfinancialplanning.net Secondary Office 650 Mullis St., Ste 101 Friday Harbor, WA 98250 (360) 378-3022 www.soundfinancialplanning.net PLEASE READ THIS WARNING: All e-mail sent to or from this address will be received or otherwise recorded by the Sound Financial Planning, Inc. corporate e-mail system and is subject to archival, monitoring and/or review, by and/or disclosure to, someone other than the recipient. This message is intended only for the use of the person(s) ("intended recipient") to whom it is addressed. It may contain information that is privileged and confidential. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender as soon as possible and delete the message without reading it or making a copy. Any dissemination, distribution, copying, or other use of this message or any of its content by any person other than the intended recipient is strictly prohibited. Sound Financial Planning, Inc. has taken precautions to screen this message for viruses, but we cannot guarantee that it is virus free nor are we responsible for any damage that may be caused by this message. Sound Financial Planning, Inc. only transacts business in states where it is properly registered or notice filed, or excluded or exempted from registration requirements. Follow-up and individualized responses that involve either the effecting or attempting to effect transactions in securities or the rendering of personalized investment advice for compensation, as the case may be, will not be made absent compliance with state investment adviser and investment adviser representative registration requirements, or an applicable exemption or exclusion. This information should not be construed as investment advice. All information is believed to be from reliable sources; however, we make no representation as to its completeness or accuracy. WE WOULD LIKE TO CREDIT THIS ARTICLE'S CONTENT TO MARKETING PRO INC.

THE HARM IN FINANCIAL JOURNALISM

In most areas of our lives, the more information you get, and the more up-to-the-minute it is, the better we can do business and make astute decisions. It is interesting that investing is one area where the opposite is true.

We're not talking here about the second-by-second blips on a Bloomberg terminal that traders and computer algorithms use to make quick-twitch buys and sells. We're talking about the normal news reports, cable TV investment reports and investing articles that you're bombarded with on a daily basis. In general, the news and data supplied by consumer journalists is almost always harmful to your financial health.

How? Consider profiles of mutual funds and mutual fund managers. The quarterly profiles in Barron's and the articles in Money, Kiplinger's and the Wall Street Journal tend to focus a bright spotlight of attention on the hot funds-that is, funds that outperformed their peers (and the market) in the previous quarter. Three months worth of track record is statistical nonsense, but the hot fund manager is interviewed with breathless deference normally given to a certified genius. It is interesting that seldom if ever is the next quarter's genius the same as the last one. Anyone who invests with the fund of the hour is in grave danger of suffering a regression to the mean-which means losses when compared with the indices.

Even one-year and five-year rankings have no predictive value, particularly when the focus is on outliers who were well ahead of their peers. Meanwhile, when we aren't reading about hot managers, we're hearing about what the stock market did (or is doing) today. Today's price movements are, to a statistician, meaningless white noise, indicative of nothing remotely significant about the future. The markets go up today, down tomorrow, up for a week, down for a week, and during each of these time periods, analysts try to tell us the causes of these random bounces. They would be more productively employed trying to explain the "causes"behind each of the waves in the ocean, yet we can't help listening to their plausible explanations as to why this earnings report, that jobs report, or some other speculation on what the Federal Reserve Board will or will not do has affected our investment outlook.

And, of course, at market tops, when new money is chasing returns at the most dangerous possible time, the news reports are telling us how the markets have been going up, up, up. When markets are depressed, and it is the best possible time to put new money to work, the news reports are telling us all the bad news about months of market losses. Swimming against that tide is nearly impossible, even for professionals.

There may be meaningful information among this chatter, but it's unlikely that most of us will see it amid the noisy background. Back in the late 1990s, one analyst who couldn't believe how much people were paying for tech stocks finally broke through the background noise by pointing out that Amazon's share price had reached approximately the same level as the entire yearly economic output of the nation of Iceland, plus a few 747 cargo jets to carry it all back to the U.S. Of course, few listened, and the bursting tech bubble cost a lot of investors a fortune.

Today, we're being told that the current market rally is long in the tooth, that the Fed is going to raise rates soon, that market valuations are kind of high, and of course that certain fund managers did really well last quarter and yesterday's market was up or down. The problem is that we were hearing exactly the same things last year and the year before (remember?), and still the market churned ahead, cranking out new record highs.

Unlike just about any other activity you might pursue, the best, most astute way to invest is to turn off the noise and let the markets carry you where they must. The short-term drops tend to become buying opportunities in the long run, and over time, the U.S. and global economies reflect the underlying growth in value generated by millions of workers who go to work each day and build that value. Investor sentiment will swing around with the unhelpful prodding of journalists and pundits, but people who stay the course have always seen new market highs eventually, while people who react to every positive or negative report tend to fare much less well. When it comes to the markets, wisdom trumps up-to-the-minute knowledge every time.

Maybe somebody should tell that to the journalists.

Sincerely, Bill Morrissey, CFP® and Tammy Prouty, CFP® Sound Financial Planning, Inc.

Primary Office 425 Commercial St., Ste 203 Mount Vernon, WA 98273 Phone: (360) 336-6527 info@soundfinancialplanning.net Secondary Office 650 Mullis St., Ste 101 Friday Harbor, WA 98250 (360) 378-3022 www.soundfinancialplanning.net

PLEASE READ THIS WARNING: All e-mail sent to or from this address will be received or otherwise recorded by the Sound Financial Planning, Inc. corporate e-mail system and is subject to archival, monitoring and/or review, by and/or disclosure to, someone other than the recipient. This message is intended only for the use of the person(s) ("intended recipient") to whom it is addressed. It may contain information that is privileged and confidential. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender as soon as possible and delete the message without reading it or making a copy. Any dissemination, distribution, copying, or other use of this message or any of its content by any person other than the intended recipient is strictly prohibited. Sound Financial Planning, Inc. has taken precautions to screen this message for viruses, but we cannot guarantee that it is virus free nor are we responsible for any damage that may be caused by this message. Sound Financial Planning, Inc. only transacts business in states where it is properly registered or notice filed, or excluded or exempted from registration requirements. Follow-up and individualized responses that involve either the effecting or attempting to effect transactions in securities or the rendering of personalized investment advice for compensation, as the case may be, will not be made absent compliance with state investment adviser and investment adviser representative registration requirements, or an applicable exemption or exclusion. This information should not be construed as investment advice. All information is believed to be from reliable sources; however, we make no representation as to its completeness or accuracy. WE WOULD LIKE TO CREDIT THIS ARTICLE'S CONTENT TO BOB VERES.