December 2024 Newsletter

Waterstone December Newsletter – Moving Forward

Uniquely Waterstone for our unique Waterstone clients 

In this Issue: 

• Rate Cut further improves Speedometers
• Strategists Anticipate: Policy changes
• US Billionaires: money is power
• Sharpening Our Saws: requirements and electives!
• Cheers to AssetMark partners for commitment
• Financial Transitions: When life changes, money changes.

Yet More Improvement in Speedometers

Note the improvement of the City National Rochdale (CNR) November speedometers (pre-election) over the October speedometers. More indicators have moved to growth as a result of Oct data and the Federal Reserve rate cut. Note, too, that this data is forward-looking 6 to 9 months.
_{Visit CNR.com/insights/speedometers for definitions of the indicators, commentary and archived data.}

CNR Strategists Anticipate as Policymakers Talk

This chart serves as a good summary in terms of the possible impacts to economic growth, inflation, interest rates, and corporate profits. Obviously, there’s a lot to monitor. For now, the underlying fundamentals remain strong, and we (CNR) believe the U.S. remains the best market.

Wealth Concentration – Money is Power!
Total U.S. Billionaire Wealth: Up 88 Percent over Four Years
March 18, 2020, the United States had 614 billionaires who owned a combined wealth of $2.947 trillion.
March 18, 2024, the United States has 737 billionaires with a combined wealth of $5.529 trillion, an 87.6 percent increase of $2.58 trillion, according to Institute for Policy Studies calculations of Forbes Real Time Billionaire Data.
(https://inequality.org/great-divide/billionaire-wealth-up-88-percent-over-four-years/)

Sharpening Our Saws
This has been a busy fall for Waterstone. This is how we spend our time when clients aren’t
on the schedule.

• Osaic Transition required six hours of orientation webinars.
• Finra (Regulatory) requires 12 hours of classes and testing annually to update advisors on topics such as: Client Service Requirements, Client Best Interests, Client Holdings, Senior Client Support, Senior Clients and Dementia, CyberSecurity, Anti-Money Laundering.
• RegEd (Regulatory) requires 12 hours of classes and testing annually on similar topics.
• Osaic (broker-dealer) requires annual 6 hours on topics of supervision.
• American Portfolios (broker-dealer) similarly requires annual 6 hrs since we spent ¾ of the year under their supervision.