Putin Retreats

The Volatility of Volatility Swings Yet Again

Been There, Done That

It used to be the fact that I found comfort in Manhattan. No one cared about my beeswax, I could dress in almost anything, go almost anywhere without being bothered, in anonymity.

Appears that is no longer the case, I have personally been at the location of this attack, at least 1500 times. It is smack in the middle of Koreatown, about 2 blocks from Macy’s (link).

Individual Health Insurance

If you have lost health insurance due to a life-qualifying event (loss of coverage from employer, divorce, loss of COBRA and many others), you can still be eligible. If your income is <150% the Federal Poverty Level (link), then you can also still apply, even though the federal deadline has passed (January 15).

It’s Not The Fact, It’s The Reaction

Not advice, dyor.
This is the overnight headline that will grab the financial markets’ attention. Markets are cheering, for now. As usual, it is not the fact that actually matters. It is the reaction, and why? It’s because the markets already reflect a probability-adjusted price, and one of those possible outcomes is a Russian retreat without conflict. HOW MUCH probability has been assigned to that outcome, yesterday, is unknown.

source of image (cnn.com)

If someone is wildly wrong, or has changed their mind dramatically, then knee-jerk reactions are entirely expected. That explains the first movement. However, from that point, it’ll get tougher, once those that were wildly wrong (or wildly right) have adjusted for new, moving possible scenarios.

When the scenarios vary widely, or people’s set of “probable scenarios” adjust to a great degree, you get more volatility in financial markets. It isn’t only the Ukraine situation, by the way, we have “Stocks For Show, Bonds For Dough” that remains.

Silo Effect in Financial Planning

I have been on multiple interviews to alert people about the uncovered issues when people consider seemingly-unrelated financial topics separately. That is almost never the case. Here’s possibly a huge, very expensive example.