Sensenig Capital Advisors

Who Has The Midas Touch?

sensenigcapital — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 15:29:01 +0000

Weston Wellington – Vice President Dimensional Fund Advisors Over the course of a lengthy and illustrious business career, Warren Buffett has offered thoughtful opinions on a wide variety of investment-related issues—executive compensation, accounting standards, high-yield bonds, derivatives, stock options, and so on. In regard to gold and its investment merits, however, Buffett has had little [...]

The Market’s Response to Crisis

sensenigcapital — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 19:08:03 +0000

A balanced global investment strategy may help mitigate the longer-term impact of negative events on disciplined investors. The chart below shows performance of a balanced investment strategy following a few historical crises. Each crisis is labeled with the month and year that it occurred or peaked. The subsequent one-, three-, and five-year cumulative returns start from [...]

Fixed Income Risk in Your Portfolio

sensenigcapital — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 14:57:42 +0000

With interest rates near historical lows, some investors may be anxious about a possible rate climb and its potential impact on their fixed income investments. Rising interest rates typically cause existing bonds to lose value. While investors might hold short-term instruments to manage this risk, an interest rate decline could spoil this strategy by forcing [...]

Year-End Review

sensenigcapital — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 15:54:31 +0000

Weston Wellington – Vice President, Dimensional Fund Advisors Equity investors around the world had a disappointing year in 2011 as thirty-seven out of forty-five markets tracked by MSCI posted negative returns. The US did well on a relative basis and was the only major market to achieve a positive total return, although the margin of [...]

2011 Review: Economy & Markets

sensenigcapital — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 17:34:33 +0000

The past year reminded investors that they should hope for the best, prepare for the worst, and be thankful when reality does not match their fears. Investors entered 2011 with hopes that the world economy would continue recovering from a long and painful deleveraging process. Equity markets had posted two straight years of positive performance, [...]

Things Change

sensenigcapital — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 18:40:37 +0000

Forecasting is hard, particularly about the future! You can do all the analysis you want, but events have a way of messing with your assumptions. In fact, of all the forecasts ever made, the only one really worth counting on is that things change. To help put things into perspective we share a recent piece [...]

Jeremy Brenn Achieves the CFP Designation!

sensenigcapital — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 02:04:30 +0000

We are pleased to announce that Jeremy Brenn recently received the highly sought designation of Certified Financial Planner (CFP®). To earn this designation, candidates must meet several requirements including mastering nearly 100 topics of integrated financial planning in major areas such as investments, retirement, estate planning, income taxation, insurance, and employee benefits. To fulfill the [...]

A Once in a Lifetime Opportunity: Taking Advantage of Increased Gifting Exemptions

sensenigcapital — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 01:59:32 +0000

Only one year remains for the greatest gift giving opportunity since the gift and estate tax laws were enacted. Have you made plans yet to take advantage of it? As most of you know, in December 2010 Congress shocked almost everyone by increasing the exemption from federal gift taxes from $1 million to $5 million. [...]

What’s “New” about a New Normal?

sensenigcapital — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 01:52:49 +0000

The 2008 global market crisis and the struggling economy have left many investors fatigued. Despite two years of strong equity returns, some investors have been slow to regain market confidence. Many are accepting the talk about a “new normal” in which stocks offer lower returns in the future. This new normal phrase has gained a [...]

Confusing the Familiar with the Safe

sensenigcapital — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 16:40:20 +0000

As human beings we use “schemas” in everyday life. A schema is a psychological term used for shortcuts we develop in our mind to help us quickly associate something. When you hear the word car, you see a picture of a car in your mind. You may also have emotional connections to cars—perhaps you and your father worked on them when you were a kid, or you were in a bad car accident at some point.