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

It seems like our world becomes more divided every day. Everything becomes political whether it's justified or not. We've faced some push back since openly sharing our Christian faith as a firm. Last month, we started a series going through some of the objections we've received since starting our Cornerstone Portfolios in 2020. One of the largest questions received is, "will I have to sacrifice performance for BRI?" You can find our response to this objection in last month's blog: BRI Objections - Part 1: Performance We started offering our Cornerstone Portfolios in 2020. Over the last few ..read more

Working with thousands of clients across the country we receive quite a bit of commentary forwarded by clients to their advisors and then to SEM. No matter the current market environment there always seems to be a group afraid of missing out on the upside and another afraid of the potential downside. There isn't anything wrong with being in either camp and certainly nothing wrong with forwarding the article or concerns to an advisor to get their take. That's what we're here for. No matter which camp the concern comes from I always end it the same way. Now this may seem like a cop-out, but it ..read more