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In today’s fast-paced world, the sheer volume of financial information can be overwhelming. At AFE Private Wealth, we focus on providing clear, actionable strategies tailored to your unique needs. Our mission is to help you navigate the complexities of financial planning with ease, ensuring you have a solid understanding of your financial landscape without the confusion.
We believe that regular communication is key to a successful financial partnership, but we also understand the importance of not inundating you with unnecessary emails. Our communication strategy is designed to keep you informed and engaged with meaningful updates that provide value. Join us at AFE Private Wealth, and experience the difference that personalized, insightful, and streamlined financial planning can make.
New Boss. Same as the Old Boss?
Last Wednesday was Kevin Warsh's first Fed FOMC Meeting as Fed Chair. Rates were held steady at 3.5% - 3.75%.¹ Market expectations suggest a rate hike is still possible for 2026 (I'll take the under on that, btw).² Warsh's brief...
Read MoreDon't Confuse Attention With Success
Roughly 50% os small businesses fail within their first five years, and 65% don't make it to ten. About 70% of day traders end up with net losses, and only 1% to 3% are consistently profitable. A study of 26,000 stocks listed between...
Read MoreInvestment FOMO Is Expensive Entertainment
Every cycle has its own version of investment FOMO. Sometimes it shows up in beaten-down travel stocks. Sometimes it shows up in video game retailers. Sometimes it shows up in tech, memory, semiconductors, AI infrastructure, or...
Read MoreFollowing the Money Behind AI
Where is all the money investing in AI actually coming from? A friend asked me this recently. It's a question worth considering. The numbers being thrown around are enormous, so let's break down who's actually writing the checks. The...
Read MoreWhy We Stay Invested in the Stock Market
A Record of Compounding Progress Stock markets have demonstrated an extraordinary record of long-term growth, extending back nearly five centuries to Antwerp in 1531, home to the first organized exchange. The New York Stock Exchange...
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Beyond the Hype: AI’s Real Economic Potential
At our quarterly economic forum, we presented a slide showing the extraordinary growth in AI capability over just the last eighteen months. Less than two years ago, an AI model could perform roughly six minutes of human labor almost...
Read MoreMoney Is Personal Because Experience Is Personal
"Your personal experiences with money make up 0.0000001% of what's happened in the world, but maybe 80% of how you think the world works." - Morgan Housel, The Psychology of Money That quote is unbelievably true. Take me for example......
Read MoreBroken Rules of Thumb
Those of us who have had a broken thumb know it makes things awfully inconvenient. Try sports. Gripping a golf club. Swinging a baseball bat. Climbing a rock wall. Sure, you can get around it, but it is not going to get you where you...
Read MoreWhat a 20x+ P/E Ratio Actually Means for the Next Decade
Most investors know the S&P 500 is expensive. Few understand what that actually means for the next decade. Howard Marks and Paul Tudor Jones have both said it recently: at elevated P/E multiples, expect roughly zero returns over ten years.
Read MoreThe Most Important Commodity Nobody Is Watching
Most people know helium for three things. It floats balloons, it pitches your voice comically high, and there was that little hiccup in the 1930s involving a certain German blimp. That’s roughly the scope of the average person’s...
Read MoreFull Throttle Recap: What Stood Out
Full Throttle Q2 Economic Roundtable RecapWhat a room. This was designed to be a roundtable at scale, bringing together the right people for real conversation. That is exactly what showed up. Engagement was high, perspectives were...
Read MoreFrom Minutes to Hours: Why AI’s Productivity Impact May Be Underestimated
Last Thursday, we participated in our quarterly economic roundtable. Many topics were discussed, but the most interesting takeaway for me was the rapid improvement in mainstream artificial intelligence tools. According to JP Morgan...
Read MoreMarket Volatility Isn’t the Risk—It’s the Opportunity
Alec Bethurm and Matthew Doty break down what’s really driving today’s market volatility—and why it matters.Market volatility isn’t just noise—it’s changing how stocks move and how investors should think about opportunity. With faster...
Read MoreTrump Accounts: Read This Before You Open One
The government just created a new investment account for kids. If your child was born between 2025 and 2028, they're getting a free $1,000 from the U.S. Treasury just for being born. Cool, right? Here's what the headlines aren't...
Read MoreSmart Money Isn't Abandoning Traditional Investing. It's Using It Better.
There is a persistent belief in wealth management that once someone gets truly wealth, they move beyond "traditional" investing.As if crossing a certain net worth line means public markets suddenly become too pedestrian. As if...
Read MoreAre We Heading for an Energy Shock? Here’s the Reality
With everything happening around oil, geopolitics, and the Straits of Hormuz, it’s easy to assume we’re heading toward another major energy shock. But today’s environment looks very different than past cycles, especially with stronger...
Read MoreExtrapolation and Market Concentration
Here's a thought experiment: If NVIDIA grows over the next decade like it did over the last one (~70% CAGR, for the curious), guess how much it would be worth.Answer: Somewhere around $800 trillion. Which is more than all the assets in...
Read MorePrivate Credit, Gating, and the Truth About "Alternatives"
Excited to start sharing more of what happens behind the scenes at AFE.A lot of our time is spent in investment committee conversations. We're challenging ideas, digging into the details, and thinking through what’s actually best for...
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Tariffs, Trade, and Turmoil: The Next Paradigm in Global Economics
We’re now 120 days or so into the new administration and it has been anything but uneventful. Since “Liberation Day” on April 2nd, the S&P crashed and the 10-year treasury sold off, from 4.00% to 4.50%. And while market performance is ve...
Read MoreTrump Economic Agenda
Now that we are two months into the Trump administration we wanted to share some thoughts on the economic agenda, and what affects that may have on the market. We don’t like making predictions, but if the Trump administration is...
Read MoreMark Reviews 2024, Ponders 2025
Our first note for 2025, providing some reflections on 2024 and what's in store in 2025.
Read MoreOn Rate Cuts and Recessions
The more things change… There have been some changes over here at AFE. You probably know a few of them if you’ve chatted with Forster recently. New platform, new people, new firm. I am a new here, as is everyone else really, excepting...
Read MoreRate Cuts Are Coming! So...what does that mean?
Last week in Jackson Hole, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said in no uncertain terms: “The time has come for policy to adjust, the direction of travel is clear, and the timing and pace of rate cuts will depend on incoming data, the...
Read MoreThoughts on market turbulence 8/5
The S&P 500 Index dropped 3% on Monday! While this might seem alarming, the market has experienced similar single-day declines 82 times since 2000, averaging about 2.3 times a year. Such corrections are not unusual. This decline might...
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