Have you been following along with our BRI objections series? We're in month 4 (and objection 4) this month. If you missed any of the previous objections, you can find them all here. This month the focus is going to be on the assumption that biblically responsible investment portfolios have a lack of offerings or diversification. The key aspect of our Cornerstone Portfolios is our due diligence and BRI screening. Not all BRI or faith-based funds are created equal. There are currently over 70 faith-based funds available; however, there are some that do very little screening or more importantly ..read more

When helping clients, advisors, and students understand the market I often say, "the market is a forward looking mechanism". Essentially today's prices are the present value of all future income streams. This requires a lot of projections (guessing) about what will come in the future. Interest rate levels and inflation estimates also enter the equation, which requires more projections (guessing). When it gets down to it, the trajectory of the market is based on how everyone FEELS about the future. This leads to wide swings in expectations as our emotions will tend to get the best of us based ..read more

I have always said you can tell a lot about a person from what they choose to read (or in today's world if they still read). I didn't always enjoy reading, but my 11th grade American Literature teacher helped me find books that I enjoyed which fostered a love of reading that helped make me who I am today. Early in my adult life we would go to the library sometimes a couple of times a week. For vacations I'd check out as many books as they would allow. Because of this I purchased one of the first Kindles made. I currently have 607 books in my Kindle library. Most of those books are fiction, wh ..read more

We saw last month that Nebuchadnezzar was involved in idolatry (with the golden statue he made). King Nebuchadnezzar was a very proud king and thought of himself as omnipotent. Even after God saved Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego from the furnace, he slightly praised God, but still didn't refer to him as his God. It can be very easy for us to become prideful when we are successful. We might start taking credit for all of our successes instead of giving credit where credit is due – to God! This month, we will see what God is going to do with Nebuchadnezzar's pride. While Nebuchadnezzar is add ..read more

If you signed important paperwork electronically in the last few years, chances are you used DocuSign. Other products exist, but at this point DocuSign is so ubiquitous that it is in danger of becoming the Kleenex of electronic signature software (fun fact: there's a word for this - genericide). SEM and our advisors have experienced an absolute barrage of fake DocuSign emails in the last few years, and we know other companies across many industries have experienced the same thing. It's not hard to understand why - DocuSign is almost a household name, and imagine what a cyber criminal could do ..read more

We're going to continue to work through some of the top objections we've received since starting our Cornerstone Portfolios in 2020. This month will be a shorter blog, but we still think it's important to cover it – in case this has been an issue you've faced with Biblically Responsible Investing. We have been told that it's hard to approach clients without it sounding too "churchy". Before going deeper into this, I think it's important to go and read our blog from last month if you haven't done so already: I don’t want to work with those people It seems like our world becomes more divided ..read more

For far too long (in my opinion) the Federal Reserve has tried to manage the economy, inflation, and the stock market under the guise of 'financial stability'. This manipulation has caused what used to be the normal economic cycles to last longer, but have much higher and lower swings. During economic expansions, money flows easily, and seemingly every idea is a 'winner', therefore companies with fringe ideas are funded with the easy money. Recessions are designed to take away the money given to the bad ideas so it can be reinvested in more stable ideas which enhance future economic growth. T ..read more

Not that there was any surprise, but last week President Biden and former President Trump "officially" became the winners of their party's nomination, so the rematch is set. Like most election years I'm already hearing from clients and advisors wanting to "wait until after the election" to make any investment decisions. Like I've done every year since 2009, I will encourage everyone to follow my most often cited piece of advice: Do not let your political opinions influence your investment decisions. In case you missed it, here's Part I of our Politics series. Politics (pt I) - MMM v5-3 If i ..read more

When have you been pressured to do something you did not want to do? Standing firm under pressure can be hard – especially if the pressure is coming from an authority figure. We might experience times when a boss, teacher, or coach has expectations that go against what we believe. There's a balance we have to find between listening to earthly authority figures and faithfully following God's ultimate authority. In this month's blog, we're going to look at how Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego stayed obedient to God even when being pressured by their worldly authority figure, King Nebuchadnezzar ..read more

The nice part about using a quantitative approach is we don't have to ask questions when the data disagrees with our opinion. The data is the only thing that matters. As we wrap up another month for SEM's economic model, I'll give you the conclusion first – the economic data says the economy continues to chug along at a nice pace. There are no signs of recession. What this means for 'soft landing' vs. 'hard landing' debates, interest rate cuts vs. no interest rate cuts, inflation declining vs. inflation increasing, or any other opinions I will leave to the talking heads and "experts". To us i ..read more