SEPTEMBER 2022

Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) investing is a rapidly growing investment discipline that includes many factors that make up traditional corporate best practices. Consequently, many firms that score well on ESG metrics are also solid investment opportunities. While ESG evaluation is popular with women and millennials—two groups that continue to gain prominence in the investment world—it continues to gain importance for all investors. With more questions arising on this opportunity, our first article reviews ESG investing.

Highly concentrated stock can often mean more complexity and potential risks. Many investment professionals consider holding more than 10-15% of your investable assets in a single security to be risky. This type of concentrated stock position adds a great deal of risk and volatility by acting in a way that may reduce your overall portfolio diversification. And when the stock is your employer’s, those risks become more complex, in that it's possible that a bad turn for the business could lead to both the depletion of your wealth as well as a possible loss of your primary source of income.  Our second article is intended to provide an initial overview of some of the different strategy options you may consider, with your Janney Financial Advisor, to protect and diversify highly concentrated stock positions in a way that coincides with your individual circumstances and full financial picture.

Please join us for our next virtual webinar on Wednesday, September 14 entitled “MEDICARE: LEARN YOUR OPTIONS”. The seminar will cover questions such as ‘What’s Medicare?’ ‘Do you need it?’ ‘When and how do you enroll?’ Don’t let Medicare overwhelm you – instead, learn how to make informed decisions for your health coverage and your financial picture. Tune in to hear from Roberta Eckert, Vice President at Nationwide Retirement Institute, for valuable information and insights on the many different considerations, types of coverages, and costs of Medicare for you and your family. To register, click here.

This month's "What's Happening Now" section shares interesting stories on 9 habits linked to a longer, happier life, why 72% of recent home buyers have regrets about their purchases, and half of employers are planning layoffs - how to negotiate if it happens to you.

We'd like to hear from you. Please feel free to contact us by phone at 614-888-2121, toll-free 877-389-2121 or email jchornyak@janney.com with any questions or comments. 

A GUIDE TO ENVIRONMENTAL, SOCIAL, AND GOVERNANCE (ESG) INVESTING

Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) investing is a rapidly growing investment discipline that includes many factors that make up traditional corporate best practices. Consequently, many firms that score well on ESG metrics are also solid investment opportunities. While ESG evaluation is popular with women and millennials—two groups that continue to gain prominence in the investment world—it continues to gain importance for all investors. This piece reviews ESG investing.

6 STRATEGIES FOR CONCENTRATED STOCK POSITIONS

This article is intended to provide an initial overview of some the different strategy options you may consider, with your Janney Financial Advisor, to protect and diversify highly concentrated stock positions in a way that coincides with your individual circumstances and full financial picture. Highly concentrated stock can often mean more complexity and potential risks. Many investment professionals consider holding more that 10-15% of your investable assets in a single security to be risky. This type of concentrated stock position adds a great deal of risk and volatility by acting in a way that may reduce your overall portfolio diversification.

9 habits linked to a longer, happier life

72% of recent homebuyers have regrets about purchase

How to Negotiate Your Exit if you Get Laid Off

Market Update

Through the first half of August, the stock market continued to ride July's rally. Including the first two weeks of August, stocks had posted four consecutive weekly gains — the longest weekly rally of 2022. The latest inflation data showed prices had fallen in July, bolstering investor confidence that the Fed may begin to reel in its aggressive interest-rate hike policy. By mid-August, the S&P 500 had recouped half of its losses from the beginning of the year, and the Nasdaq had risen over 20.0% from its low in June. U.S. corporate profits rose 9.1% to a fresh record high of $2.62 trillion in the second quarter of 2022, following a 4.9% drop in the previous period. It appeared that even if the Fed continued its hawkish push to get inflation down to the 2.0% target, the economy had thus far been resilient, with the labor market continuing to show strength, while industrial production advanced.

Despite these developments, Federal Reserve officials maintained their hawkish rhetoric. Then the stock rally of the summer of 2022 came to an abrupt end. First, the release of the minutes of the July meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee, revealing that several Committee members were concerned that inflation remained unacceptably high, and that, despite declines in oil and some commodities, there was little evidence to date that inflation pressures were subsiding. Then Fed Chair Jerome Powell spoke before the Jackson Hole Economic Symposium and reiterated the Fed's resolve to stamp down inflation, even if that means slower economic growth and "some pain on households." Investors reacted by pulling from equities, sending stock values lower, while giving back gains enjoyed earlier in the month. Each of the benchmark indexes ended August in the red, led by the tech-heavy Nasdaq, followed by the S&P 500 and the Dow.