The Fed just published their survey for consumer finances which covers through the year 2010. This report provides an fairly good analysis of how the average American consumer is doing from a financial perspective. This report gives us insight in what the basic spending habits and patterns of Americans are or will be. We wanted […]
The End Of Cheap Oil And The Self Directed IRA
We’ve recently seen a significant decline in the price of oil. This has brought gas prices from north of $4 per gallon to the mid to high $3 per gallon range. This has people cheering as it saves them a few bucks each month. However, if you step back from the forest you will notice […]
The Looming Recession And The Self Directed IRA
The Fed is meeting to discuss new policies and strategies to deal with the looming recession. Their options are few and cannot always make up for bad government policy. We need to briefly look at some of these issues to see how this may affect your self directed IRA and your overall self directed IRA […]
Gold, Hyperinflation And Your Self Directed IRA
Will or would gold hold up under a hyperinflation scenario? This may sound like some sort of scifi, Ayn Rand scenario, but that’s what the people of the Weimar Republic of post WWI Germany thought and yet lived through. The people of Germany had to withstand price increases that doubled every 28 hours or 20 […]
The US Outlook And Your Self Directed IRA
Despite the many negative macro economic factors that are negatively impacting the US and the US recovery, the US is in relatively better shape than other countries. This may sound contradictory to some of our prior blog postings, but its not when we compare the US to other countries. So, we thought we would highlight […]
The Self Directed IRA Update
We hate to continue being such a doom and gloom type with the blog, but here we are half way through June and the economic news is not getting better – its getting worse. Greece – Greece is clearly heading for a breakup and even withdrawal from the European Union. Greece can’t even borrow money. […]
How Demographics Impact Your Self Directed IRA
One of the things that people fall into when looking to the future is normalcy bias. We wrote about this problem a few blogs back. The basic issue is that we think things will continue to go on the same in the future as they did in the past. This is especially true when we […]
Potential Fed Moves And Your Self Directed IRA
This week Ben Bernanke was in front of congress being asked if he was going to be engaging in QE3 or some other form of intervention. In true political avoidance tactics, Bernanke basically replied by stating that the Fed stood at the ready should conditions warrant. He pointed out that the Fed still does have […]
Self Directed IRA Real Estate Trends
Real estate has and continues to be a key holding in a large percentage of self directed IRAs. We saw the activity level high in pre-2008 and now, we see that level coming back, but for different reasons. Below we will look at a couple of key metrics to give you an idea as to […]