Q2 2021 Newsletter

July 2021

Hello,

I hope you're well and as excited as we are about the progress much of the developed world has made on getting things back to normal. Enjoy our Q2 newsletter.

Market Commentary

Q2 2021 Second Quarter Investment Market Report

The U.S. investment markets continued to defy gravity in the second quarter of the year, closing out the month of June—and the first half of 2021—at new record highs. This is the fifth consecutive quarter where the U.S. markets posted gains.

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Selected Content

Booming Home Sales

Arguably the wildest consequence of the recent pandemic is the remarkable price boom in the U.S. housing market—which, some might remember, went spectacularly bust in the 2008-9 Great Recession collapse. Today, half of all houses put on the market are purchased in less than a week....

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The Cost of Living, Then and Now

Inflation is in the news again, thanks to a recent jump in the Consumer Price Index. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has calculated that the price of a basket of goods and services rose 5% on an annualized basis in May, the largest increase since August of 2008. The inflation rate was 4.2% in April—which, too, was well above the Federal Reserve Board’s target of 2% a year.

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Pricey Stock Values Here and Abroad

You probably know that the U.S. stock market has been delivering the highest returns among all developed nations, not just in the last couple of years but over the most recent ten years. But that also means that U.S. stocks have become much more expensive relative to other nations.

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Chinese Crypto

It isn’t getting much attention in the press, but the Chinese government has been quietly rolling out a state-backed cryptocurrency, called the digital yuan—more officially called the Digital Currency Electronic Payment (DCEP). Through a lottery system, government has given away millions of dollars in the digital currency to citizens in Shenzhen, Chengdu and Suzhou, in order to test how well the government’s barcode on the phones will work with Alipay and WeChat in actual merchant locations.

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Please let me know if we might be of assistance.

Have a wonderful rest of your day,

‍Ashley Murphy, CFP® AIF®

Areté Wealth Strategists, LLC.

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