“Is the market high only because of some irrational exuberance – wishful thinking on the part of investors that blinds us to the truth of our situation?" -Robert J. Shiller, Irrational Exuberance (2000) The quote above is the main questio [...]

“It has been said that politics is the second-oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first.” -President Ronald Reagan Thirty-two weeks ago, we wrote our first in what became a weekly series of “COVID [...]

Section 1031 Exchanges are a fairly unknown topic – but one that drives the world of real estate. It was estimated in a 2015 study that this hidden real estate tool adds somewhere between 7.5% and 11.6% to the value of all real estate in [...]

They say all good things must come to an end. Last week (and continuing this morning) we saw a significant hiccup in the “tech rally” that has driven markets higher over the last several months. We wanted to provide a bit of perspective a [...]

We sometimes joke around the office that “we wish we were meteorologists”.  Why?  Because it seems they can be wrong all the time and never get fired!  (Sorry to any meteorologists reading this!) We spend a lot of time in these pages expl [...]

Cars have become much more reliable over the years.  Consumer Reports says the average life expectancy of a car today is 8 years or 150,000 miles. In the 1970s, car odometers rolled back to zero after hitting 99,999 – because frankly it w [...]

If you didn’t know what a “derecho” was before this week – and you live in Iowa like we do – you sure do now. On Monday, shortly after our last newsletter went out, a large portion of our home state was hit by this unique type of storm. F [...]