Brexit: What does it mean?

By David J. Haas CFP®

The news will be filled today with stories about Brexit. As of 9:32AM today, the FTSE 100 index (100 largest stocks on the London Stock Exchange) is down 3.51%, recovering from a much larger drop at the open. The US stock market has just opened, with the S&P 500 down 2.64%.

For those of you who have not been paying attention to our friends in the UK and Europe, Brexit is an acronym for “British Exit”. Exit what? Britain was voting on exiting the European Union or EU. This was a referendum, held yesterday in the UK, on whether Great Britain remains in the EU or starts the process of leaving the EU. Although there were world-wide connotations to this vote, it was actually an internal political matter in Great Britain. Even though the vote was quite close, the British voters have decided to leave the EU. read more

Crisis in USA - Shares Fall Graph on United States of America Flag with Face of Benjamin Franklin from one hundred dollars bill

How’s the economy really doing?

By David J. Haas CFP®, June 10, 2016

I am writing this post on June 10th and we are close to 1/2 way done with the year. So how is the economy really doing? I’m not talking about the markets. They tend to have their own schizophrenic rhythm. I’m talking about main street. There are some statistics we can look at, but first how about some anecdotal evidence. My apologies if you can self-identify in the stories below, but I assure you no one else will be able to identify you.

Stories from Main Street

There is a CPA I know who I talked to yesterday and I asked him how its going. “Terrible” is what he said. “Taxes and Regulation are killing business.” “Everything is just so hard to do.” He seemed to be very pessimistic and I assume he is hearing some of that from his clients. After all, a CPA who handles small business really has a good idea of how his clients might be doing and might have a good handle on how Main Street is doing. It’s certainly true that regulation and taxation are big factors with small business and its not surprising that a CPA’s clients are complaining to him about it. Tax and regulation has definitely gotten more difficult and expensive to navigate. I see that in my own business. read more

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