Eckhardt & Company Blog

Most analysts did not anticipate the volatility that investors would face in the first quarter of 2025. The equity markets started the quarter with strong momentum, buoyed by President Trump's return to leadership of the world's largest economy and financial markets. After achieving impressive annual returns of over 20% in both 2023 and 2024, the equity markets reached another all-time high in February.

Retirement savers understand the importance of being proactive. Having healthy retirement savings can help you live comfortably in your later years. As stewards of our clients' wealth, we take great satisfaction in helping them prepare for retirement. We also enjoy assisting parents and grandparents who wish to contribute to their loved ones' futures by properly gifting funds to a retirement account, provided the recipient has earned income and qualifies.

Happy New Year and welcome to 2025! We hope you and your family had an enjoyable holiday season. We thank you for giving us the opportunity to help you pursue your financial goals. We are excited to see what the new year will bring.

Equity and bond markets began the second quarter of 2024 with a rough start, thanks to the Federal Reserve’s decision not to reduce interest rates due to stubbornly high inflation rates. However, strong performances from companies tied to artificial intelligence and a more favorable outlook on inflation numbers changed that perspective. By the quarter’s end, investors saw multiple all-time-high days, and many records were set for equities.

Whether someone has $50,000 or $5,000,000 to invest, there are several investment pitfalls that any investor can fall into. One of our goals as financial professionals is to help clients avoid these pitfalls, which could be very costly. We have come across many mistakes and firmly believe that it could be much easier and less expensive to learn from other's mistakes rather than make them yourself.

Quarterly Economic Update: First Quarter 2024 The first quarter of 2024 continued to reward investors who stayed the course and enjoyed strong returns in 2023 as the momentum of 2023’s year-end rally took another step forward.