A weak jobs report isn’t a recession, remember 33 days in 2020 A weak jobs report isn’t a recession, remember 33 days in 2020. The stat that resets expectations: in March 2020, the S&P 500 fell about 34% in just 33 days and then went on to hit new highs later that same year (2020). That’s your reminder that markets can move a lot faster than the economy, and faster than our nerves, too. I still have the coffee-stained notepad from my desk that month, futures were limit down in the morning and green by lunch. Whiplash city. One month…

The hidden cost nobody budgets for: policy whiplash The hidden cost nobody budgets for: policy whiplash. The Fed tweaks a sentence, bumps a dot, or shifts a rate path, and, poof, your retirement paycheck changes. Not your account balance, your monthly income line item. It’s the stealth expense people miss. A 1% swing in short-term rates can mean $10,000 a year on a $1 million cash/T-bill bucket. At 5%, that bucket throws off about $50,000; at 3%, it’s $30,000. Same principal. Different paycheck. And it can happen fast. For context: the Fed held the policy rate at 5.25%-5.50% for much…

Old-school rebalancing vs. the 2025 mindset Old-school rebalancing was simple: set a 60/40, check it once or twice a year, and go walk the dog. That still works mathematically. But it’s September 2025, and the tape trades like a macro headline machine. Payroll Friday hits at 8:30 a.m. ET, algorithms read the nonfarm payrolls line in under 50 milliseconds, and rates and sectors jerk around before your coffee cools. Here’s the tension we’re all feeling: your 401(k) isn’t a day-trading account, yet the market moves like one. So the real question is practical, not philosophical: should a hot or cold…

Wait, 31% have zero saved? Here’s why the Fed suddenly matters Wait, 31% have zero saved? That’s not a typo. The Federal Reserve’s 2023 Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking (published in 2024) found that 31% of non-retirees had no retirement savings. No IRA, no 401(k), nothing. When that many people are starting from zero, interest-rate moves aren’t just for bond geeks, they’re the difference between a plan that pencils out and one that… doesn’t. Here’s the setup in 2025: rate-cut odds keep whipsawing week to week, the 10‑year Treasury has ping‑ponged around the low 4s, and the labor market,…