Market Review 2025:

US Stocks Ride Rocky Road to a Third Straight Year of Gains

View Market Review 2025 PDF

Index Returns 2025:

Equity and Fixed Income index market returns and index-based premiums as of the most recent quarter end.

View Index Returns 2025 PDF

Power Of Compounded Returns

Compounding is a powerful force. When returns are reinvested, the investment’s value can grow exponentially over time.

View Compounded Growth PDF

INVESTING v. SPECULATING
Speculation is a zero-sum game, meaning one person's gain is another person's loss. Adhering to long-term investment principles should not result in losses for anyone. Investing in the markets isn’t a competition between a buyer and a seller. Investing is about risk and return, and markets have historically rewarded investors for the risk they accept, not for efforts to outsmart anybody.

INVESTING IN EFFICIENT MARKETS
Efficient Markets is essentially a theory about how market prices are determined, such as for stocks and bonds. It’s called a theory because it cannot be proven 100 percent; however, there is strong evidence supporting it, and common sense further reinforces it. It’s been the core of my investment philosophy for the past 26 years.

Fiduciary Investment Management - Helping Clients For The Past 26 Years.

We consider real investing to be a form of disciplined investing, where discipline is applied to your goals rather than committing to an investment, regardless of market conditions. A simple “buy and hold” strategy may effectively lower trading costs, but expanding and improving on that cost advantage is possible. Once we’ve quantified our financial goals, it becomes easier to manage strategies, as we know our destination and the growth rate required to reach it. From there, it’s a matter of taking advantage of the market's natural process of rewarding investors for risk-taking, which involves constructing a well-diversified portfolio and having the discipline to reap the expected benefits. Taking advantage of the market’s historical process of rewarding long-term discipline is best accomplished through low-cost, well-diversified, and tax-efficient mutual funds.

Anthony B. Carr’s Recent Blogs

The Roth IRA - It’s Time To Consider

The Roth IRA offers significant tax advantages that can generate tax savings year after year, but the primary deterrent is that taxes must be paid upfront on contributions or conversion amounts.

Financial Shocks - We’ve Had Them Before!

However, like the other events mentioned, this situation will eventually be resolved; we don’t know how or when. It is because of these unpredictable and unexpected events that stock returns tend to outperform those of less risky investments.

Buying Bonds - You Become The Lender

We traditionally think of a loan as originating with a bank (or other investor) and going to the borrower (a person or business) – mortgages, student loans, credit cards, etc. However, when an individual purchases a bond, they become the investor.

Disciplined Investing in Volatile Markets

The good news for investors is that they don’t need any special skills or expertise to achieve long-term investment growth. The most important trait is probably the hardest thing to sustain: discipline.

(925) 484-1671
anthony@carrwealth.com

Investing is Not Speculating

Speculation is a zero-sum game, meaning one person's gain is another person's loss. Adhering to long-term investment principles should not result in losses for anyone. Investing in the markets isn’t a competition between a buyer and a seller. Investing is about risk and return, and markets have historically rewarded investors for the risk they accept, not for efforts to outsmart anybody.

Beneficiary IRAs - What To Know

.A Beneficiary IRA, also known as an Inherited IRA, is an Individual Retirement Account that is passed to a designated beneficiary after the original owner's death. The beneficiary can be a spouse, a child, another relative, or even an entity like a trust or charity.

Rollovers & Transfers

A benefit for our clients we take pride in is the efficiency and urgency to rollover or transfer accounts with other brokerages and employer- sponsored plans.

Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs)

We manage all types of Individual Retirement Accounts, including Traditional, Rollover, Beneficiary (Inherited), Roth, and Custodial IRAs. Charles Schwab Co. is the custodian of the institutional investments we utilize for our clients.

We also manage clients:
Individual Accounts - Taxable brokerage accounts that enable tax management.
Joint Accounts - Taxable joint and community property brokerage accounts.
Trust Accounts - Revocable and Irrevocable Trust accounts.

Investment Choices

Investment Choices are offered through Public exchanges such as the New York Stock Exchange, American Stock Exchange, NASDAQ, and the London Stock Exchange. Public exchanges are organized platforms that enable their participants to trade in capital market investments, such as stocks and bonds. Some benefits of using public exchanges as opposed to Private markets are:

1) Liquidity

2) Regulation

3) Transparency

4) Diversification

Mutual Funds

A mutual fund is a financial vehicle in which shareholders put their money together to invest in securities (e.g., stocks, bonds, money market instruments). A mutual fund allows individuals to diversify their investments across many different assets, which helps spread out risk and makes it easier to build wealth over the long term.

ETF’s

An ETF (exchange-traded fund) is a type of investment fund that holds a basket of assets, such as stocks, bonds, or commodities, and trades on a stock exchange like an individual stock. ETFs offer investors instant diversification, lower costs than some mutual funds, and can be bought and sold throughout the day. They are often created to track a market index (like the S&P 500) or a specific investment strategy, theme, or sector.

Money Market Funds

A money market fund is a type of low-risk mutual fund that invests in short-term, high-quality debt securities, such as those issued by governments and highly-rated corporations.

Certificates of Deposit (CDs)

A CD (Certificate of Deposit) is a savings account that pays a fixed interest rate for a set period of time (the term). CDs typically offer higher interest rates than traditional savings or checking accounts in exchange for restricting access to your funds, as withdrawing money before the maturity date usually results in a penalty.

Individual Stocks

A stock is a share of ownership (or "equity") in a company, giving the owner a claim on its assets and earnings. Companies issue stock to raise money to fund operations, growth, or new projects.

Investment Derivatives

The four major types of derivatives are Forwards, Futures, Options, and Swaps. These financial contracts derive their value from an underlying asset and serve purposes like risk hedging and speculation. These investments carry a higher risk than the average stock, but we help clients understand the associated risks and confirm that their risk tolerance aligns with their investment strategies.

Investments involve risks. The investment return and principal value of an investment may fluctuate so that an investor’s shares, when redeemed, may be worth more or less than their original value. Past performance is not a guarantee of future results. Diversification neither assures a profit nor guarantees against loss in a declining market. There is no guarantee that strategies will be successful.

Dimensional Fund Advisors LP (DFA)

Our predominant provider of low-cost, well-diversified, and tax-efficient Mutual Funds and ETFs is Dimensional Fund Advisors LP. DFA has shared the same investment philosophy since we began managing client investments. DFA is an independent investment company that I do not receive any compensation from, nor do I pay them anything directly. Please see the following quick one page slides, videos, and information about DFA and their investment products.