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Owning your company’s stock can be a blessing or a curse. Jason Zweig, a Wall Street Journal columnist highlighted this weekend several retirement plans where employees owned a ton of their shares in their 401k or other retirement plans.

A huge thanks again to Big Picture Retirement Show hosted by Devin Carroll for having Andrew on your show.

International markets have had their best first half performance since 2009. The rally was driven by a synchronized global economic recovery, better than expected corporate earnings and reduced political risks.

Stocks continue to grind their way higher as stocks had their best first half since 2013. The catalyst for stocks continues to be solid corporate earnings and investors’ expectations for improving economic growth. There was some profit taking in some of the better performing sectors like technology late in quarter, but new record highs were consistently hit during the quarter. 

Life insurance is one of those things in life that you never really want to deal with, but know you need it. Having the right level of life insurance is an important part of a sound financial plan. Knowing what type of coverage along with how much, is central to making sure you are not vulnerable or over insured. 

Restricted stock units (RSUs) are a common way for employers to offer stock based compensation to their employees. More employees are starting to see RSUs as part of their overall compensation. Receiving RSUs or stock linked compensation is a sign that things are going well in your career!

The rising costs of education is something that all parents understand all too well. College costs are beginning to moderate, but private high school costs in Kansas City are still showing steady price increases. The average increase for the 2017-2018 academic year is 3.1%.

Thanks Big Picture Retirement Show hosted by Devin Carroll for having Andrew on your show again. The last part of 2016 was really good for the stock market and the momentum continued for the first couple months of 2017.

International markets had an impressive start to the year. All major developed markets were positive for the first quarter and global indexes outperformed the US markets. The US Dollar weakened in the quarter which helped lift over all returns. The top performing sectors were technology, consumer staples and consumer discretionary. The energy sector sold off in the quarter.

The momentum from the post election rally continued into the new year. Stocks were strong this quarter having their best start to the year since 2013. The themes this quarter were volatility remained historically low, confidence is still robust and governing can be a grind.