Finally, Christmas music is legal…and so are outdoor Christmas lights and decorating Christmas trees.  The rules of the holiday season dictate no signs of Christmas until after Thanksgiving, and all Christmas artifacts must be removed by January 2nd.  😊 At the Yakel household, we have fully complied and are now

This holiday the season the Irving family calendar is not as jam packed as it has been in previous years, partly I’m thankful for and also partly it feels a little strange.  However, this quieter holiday season (as quiet as it can be with a 1 and 4 year old 😊) will provide some us […]

For the first time in a long time, the Value portion of the S&P 500 outperformed the Growth portion. Granted, it was only over one week, but it could signal a reversal of a trend that has essentially been happening since 2006. Credit to Jeff Weniger at WisdomTree for his analysis on this subject.   […]

This election season has been a challenge, driving Crush to binge on chips… However, with the election (yet perhaps not the end of the debate) behind us, hopefully we can start to mend fences and live in peace with each other. With the market soaring to all time highs today on the news that we […]

Here we are – the day many Americans went into 2020 thinking would be the biggest event of the year….and then the pandemic happened.  Given the unforeseen circumstances of this year, this election feels heavily weighted no matter what side you are on.  However, as important as election day is and as unique as

October is my favorite time to live in Virginia…I know we take our knocks when it comes to the weather, but October is the payoff for the crazy weather we have all year long.. I do love the shades of green in April and the springtime flowers of May, but October is when Virginia comes […]

2020 has proven to be the year almost everyone will be happy to see go as the clock nears midnight on Dec 31st.  Although the issues we have been battling globally and as a country have been particularly severe this year,  I feel as though that is a recurring theme — at the end of […]

I realize this blog title could pertain to a lot of things going on in our world right now. In fact, it probably could be reversed to, ‘Insanity Now, Serenity Later.’ At least, I certainly hope there’s some serenity later for all of our sakes! In this case, I am referring to income tax rates […]

Every time we send out the weekly blog email, we invite our readers to send ideas for future posts our way.  Every now and then, a reader takes us up on that! 😊 Here’s one question that we’ve been meaning to answer for a while (but were waylaid by one of the craziest market cycles […]