COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO
A long history, and an even longer future.
We’ve deliberately and thoughtfully expanded Howe & Rusling’s geographical presence westward, including in Colorado Springs, to serve our wealth management clients who are spread across over 30 states.
Michael Carrico, CFP®, CRPC®
WEALTH MANAGER
Michael Carrico is a Wealth Manager who leads our Colorado Springs branch.
Michael is a Wealth Manager with over 11 years of experience in the financial services industry. He holds the CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ and Chartered Retirement Planning Counselor™ designations and received a bachelor’s degree in Economics from Colorado State University. Prior to joining Howe & Rusling, Michael worked as a Senior Financial Consultant with T. Rowe Price and a Senior Wealth Advisor with Empower.
Michael has a passion for helping his clients achieve their financial goals. He understands that every person and family is unique and believes that having a plan and a trusted advisor is the foundation to his clients’ success.
When he isn’t staying busy with finance Michael can be found traveling or enjoying the beautiful outdoors of Colorado. Some of his favorite activities are mountain biking, rock climbing and snowboarding. In 2021 Michael adopted a pandemic pup, named her Stella Blue and started taking her along on his adventures.
For more than 30 years, CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ certification has been the standard of excellence for financial planners.
As a CFP® professional, Michael takes a holistic, personalized approach to bring all the pieces of your financial life together. As part of his CFP® certification, he has made a commitment to act as a fiduciary when providing financial planning advice to you.
Colorado Springs Wealth Management Services
We employ active portfolio management of various stock, bond, and ETF solutions to help you meet your objectives. And since the impact of investment gains can be increased taxes, we actively consider tax-loss harvesting as part of our process.
A comprehensive evaluation of your current and future financial concerns helps us develop the best approach for meeting goals. We have several CFP® professionals on our team, and we utilize robust, sophisticated software for testing various variables and scenarios.
We are not experts in everything, but we will get you in front of any expert that you need. We have long, trusted relationships with many industry professionals and are happy to facilitate those conversations for you.
We love what we do, and we love to teach others about it. When we produce regular educational content, we aim to increase your financial literacy so that you’re better equipped to know what you can do to reach your goals.
Our processes, from onboarding to account maintenance to reporting, are electronic for increased ease, convenience, and security. We aim to make everything available with the touch of a button.
Latest CONTENT from Michael Carrico, cfp®, crpC®
From Dockworkers’ Strikes to Missile Strikes: Unpacking Economic Risks for Inflation and Rate Cuts
Explore the economic risks of the recent U.S. dockworkers’ strike and Iranian missile strike on Israel. Learn how these events may impact inflation, interest rates, and the Federal Reserve’s future actions.
Attention-Grabbing Headlines: Unemployment, the Sahm Rule, and the Yen
Any time the market makes big moves, specifically big negative moves, people are going to try to find the “why” behind the price action. It’s human nature. We love to find patterns and meaning. As I have said before, it is a worthwhile practice to understand the reason for market moves because it can demystify them and make them more bearable. However, it can also be a source of anxiety to be steeped in headlines which are designed to manipulate emotions. There has been no shortage of headlines in the last two weeks. Last week we had the Federal Reserve policy meeting, and they held rates steady while opening the door for near-term rate cuts without outright promising them. That same day, the Bank of Japan surprised markets with a rate hike and the yen began to rally relative to the U.S. dollar. Technology companies with an AI angle have been pillars of U.S. stock market performance since early last year and we received some disappointment in earnings releases from a handful of those companies which poured some cold water on AI enthusiasm. We have seen headlines of escalating tensions in the Middle East. There is news of a delayed launch on a new chip from Nvidia. There was a weak employment report on Friday. News came out over the weekend that Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway had sold a sizeable portion of its stake in Apple and raised cash to a record high. When the Oracle of Omaha makes moves, investors take notice. Amid the volatility on Monday there were headlines about recession risk, emergency Fed rate cuts, the yield curve, and the Sahm Rule. In short, it’s been noisy, and investors could pick a topic to worry about. We can’t cover all these topics, but let’s examine two of the more complicated ones, the Sahm Rule and the yen carry trade, and try to put them in context.
Coming Up From Behind: What’s the Story With Small-Cap Stocks?
The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite indexes tend to take up most of the oxygen in the room when talking about the stock market and that can leave other stories untold. So today, let’s peel back the onion and see what’s going on elsewhere in the stock market, ask why that might be happening, and whether that means anything going forward.
Sowing Season
I write these articles once a month and my goal is to keep my readers informed. Those readers are, for the most part, clients, colleagues, and friends. That information is typically about the financial markets, about trends, about how I’m approaching a given topic, and about the big picture of finances. There is often a running theme of examining a claim or ill-defined story driven by headlines or sound bites and digging deeper. The market is an inherently noisy thing. There is always something new to grab our attention, always someone making a claim that this is the thing we really must heed. Really! It is worthwhile to examine those stories and claims and see what we can learn, but it’s also easy to get lost in the noise and become distracted from the places our attention really belongs.
What the Heck is Stagflation?
There has been some talk of stagflation this year and it finally became enough for Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell to comment on it. It seems to me that a lot of financial jargon gets tossed about without consideration for the fact that most people didn’t go to school for economics or get a job in finance. So, since it’s in the zeitgeist, maybe it’s time to define some terms and get to the bottom of a couple of questions. What is stagflation? Is it occurring in the U.S. right now?
Why is the Market Falling?
Any time the stock market falls for several days in a row, investors are bound to wonder what’s causing the volatility, even if they aren’t necessarily worried about it. I have not had many clients, friends, or family members ask me about the recent losses in the stock market yet, which I take to mean that most people aren’t that concerned. However, if the trend continues, it’s only a matter of time before I will be talking about the markets at dinner parties. Our readers and clients know that we think and invest long-term, but I always tell my clients that I want them to know why we’re doing what we’re doing. An informed investor is a more confident investor. With that in mind, let’s examine the recent price action in the markets, discuss what might be causing the reaction, and try to understand what the future may hold.
Investors, Speculators, and Irrational Markets: Why We Focus on the Long-Term
Among my friends in the industry, we tend to challenge one another’s thinking and ask interesting questions just for fun. Well, I call it fun, though our significant others may beg to differ when it comes up at dinner parties. Lately there have been several discussions about whether current prices are justified by underlying fundamentals and one friend even suggested he may use some “fun money” to short NVDA. This inevitably led my other friend to a quote he has revisited often as of late…
How Are the Magnificent 7 Faring Through Earnings Season?
The S&P 500 closed last week down 0.42% ending a five-week winning streak and pulling back from a string of record-breaking highs. The dour mood continued into the beginning of this week and the S&P 500 only barely squeaked out a positive return in the last few minutes of trading on Wednesday leading up to the Nvidia earnings release only to turn on a dime and power back on Thursday. There are explanations for this activity which I’ll explore below. However, the bottom line is that volatility is back in the markets, and we are seeing that in the reactions to earnings announcements this quarter. As of Wednesday night, the companies dubbed the Magnificent 7 have all reported earnings and they seem as good an example as any to explore how changing expectations are impacting stock prices.
Investing in an Election Year: Should Investors Worry About the U.S. Presidential Election?
Should Investors Worry About the U.S. Presidential Election? Happy New Year, everyone! I know we’re already nearly a month into 2024, but this is my first article to our clients in the new year and I just took down my Christmas tree embarrassingly late in January, so it still feels appropriate. At the beginning of every year, the financial media is awash in market forecasts. It should come as no surprise that I am not one for market predictions, but it is valuable to consider the developments so far in 2024, understand the market environment we find ourselves in today, and think about the challenges and opportunities the coming year may have in store. One topic I expect to come up in conversation this year is the upcoming U.S. presidential election. Throughout my career, every presidential election cycle has brought fresh anxiety for investors and questions about what a given election outcome might mean for the markets. So, we’ll consider that question today and hopefully avoid some apprehension later.
The Important Things: tuning out the financial noise to focus on what really matters
As the end of the year rapidly approaches and we all spend time with our friends, family, and loved ones, it feels as though time is accelerating and 2023 will be in the past before we know it. Reflecting on the topics of blog articles this year, I wrote about legislation a few times including changes to Roth rules, debt ceiling battles, and banking regulation interventions. Macroeconomic conditions, geopolitical tensions, and market reactions to both were also common topics. Perhaps the most common subject was the Federal Reserve and the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), and it was so frequent that we need not count. There was another Federal Reserve meeting this week and, while the Summary of Economic Projections was a point of some interest for the markets, reflecting on such a strange year for economics and the markets got me thinking of the bigger picture. Perhaps it’s the season, but it feels like a good time to take a step back and reflect not on the noise of the financial press and the minutiae of the financial markets, but on the reasons we all bother to get up in the morning, go to work, do the hard things, and invest for the future.
Your Guide to HSA Year-End Contributions
With the year swiftly coming to a close it’s time for taxpayers to think about those year-end financial housekeeping items. While there are many topics to consider such as year-end tax deadlines, portfolio allocation, and the cost of the holidays, what we’re thinking about today is Health Savings Accounts or “HSAs.” Today we’ll review HSA contribution limits and deadlines, the value of HSAs as a tax planning and retirement planning tool, and investing your HSA balance.
What is the Behavior Gap?
Any time the market moves several percentage points in a week, let alone a day, it can make an investor wonder if they need to be doing something, anything, in response. I regularly get questions from clients around the time of big moves in the markets in either direction. Should the strategy change? Am I missing out? Could I be better positioned? One example of such a move was Tuesday of this week when CPI data was released and came in slightly better than expectations. The S&P 500 index was up 1.91% at the close while the Russell 2000 index, a widely followed small-cap U.S. stock index, ended the day up 5.49% and U.S. Treasury yields dropped sharply. Today we’ll examine what might explain that big day in the markets, why investors might feel a need to act, and whether taking some action makes sense.
Attention-grabbing Headlines: Wars, Money Supply, Interest Rates, and Bitcoin
There are always headlines moving the markets. Well, perhaps it’s more accurate to say that there are always headlines and the markets are always moving. As to whether those headlines are the cause of market moves is open to debate. Regardless of the cause and effect relationship, headlines can create headaches for investors, and it can be difficult to know if those headlines are worth worrying about. So today I would like to look at a few headlines that have jumped out at me in recent weeks. Among those attention-grabbing news stories are geopolitical conflicts, the United States money supply, interest rates (yet again), and bitcoin.
Spam, Scams, and… AI?
I don’t know about you, dear reader, but lately it seems the volume of spam I have been receiving has ballooned wildly. Spam certainly was not born with the advent of the internet and has been a reality of the connected world even before most households had an AOL installation disc arrive in the mail. Remember chain letters? However, just this year I have noticed more and more phishing emails are getting through the spam blocker on both personal and professional inboxes.
Let’s Talk About Headlines: Jackson Hole, China, U.S. Banks, and Nvidia
With earnings season winding down and this week’s relatively light economic calendar, the talk of the week has been around Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s speech at Jackson Hole which is underway as of the publishing of this article. One of these days, speeches by Federal Reserve Open Market Committee (FOMC) members and monetary policy decisions may once again be humdrum affairs which don’t compel regular newsletter updates, but that time has not yet come.
The Fed and Interest Rates: A Tale of Two Birds
Is it the best of times or the worst of times in the economy? It seems to depend on what data you review. On the negative side of the scale, the Conference Board’s Leading Economic Index is deeply negative, and the US Treasury yield curve is deeply inverted. We have not seen such stark indicators without a resulting recession in the last 50 years. On the other side of the scale, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq indices are up double digits year-to-date while the unemployment rate is still historically low and inflation, as measured by the year-over-year Consumer Price Index (CPI), is falling and has been for a year since peaking in June 2022. In fact, due to falling inflation, the year-over-year measure of US real (inflation-adjusted) average hourly earnings is positive after two years in the negative. Is it possible that the negative indicators are wrong this time?
Let’s Talk About AI
So just what is going on with new developments in AI and how should we be thinking about it? This is a sprawling subject, and I am not an expert in artificial intelligence. My apologies in advance to any AI engineers who disagree with my understanding of the subject. By no means do I expect to cover everything in this newsletter, but today I would like to discuss what AI is, what the new developments are, and give some perspective on how investors might think about AI. Let’s dig in.
Let’s Talk About the Debt Ceiling
What exactly is going on with the US debt ceiling and what does it mean for investors?
Saving for a Child… Which Account Type is Right for You?
So, you have decided to help your child or grandchild start saving and investing. That’s fantastic! It’s the first step on their road to financial success. But now you must decide what type of account to use, and you are confronted with a tangled mess of options.
Does Diversification Still Matter?
“Is the 60/40 Portfolio dead?!” I have seen some variant of this as an article title every few months for years. It’s a click-bait title and it is intriguing. The argument usually made in these articles is that investors can no longer rely on a diversified portfolio built primarily of traditional investment assets such as stocks and bonds to support retirement goals. I respectfully disagree with that assessment and today I’ll tell you why.
The State of Banking: How Concerned Should We Be?
Three banks have made headlines in recent days, Silvergate Bank and its holding company Silvergate Capital Corp (NYSE: SI), Signature Bank (Nasdaq: SBNY), and most notably Silicon Valley Bank and its holding company SVB Financial Group (Nasdaq: SIVB). Silvergate Bank is a major bank of the cryptocurrency community and announced on March 8, 2023 that it would be winding down operations with plans to liquidate voluntarily.[1] On Friday, March 10, 2023 California banking regulators announced that the FDIC would take over the liquidation of Silicon Valley Bank holding company SVB Financial Group.[2] On Sunday night, March 12, New York banking regulators announced that Signature Bank would be placed into receivership of the FDIC.[3]
Diving In Again: Roth 2.0
It seems the only things discussed these days in financial publications are interest rates, inflation, and labor markets. It makes sense. The disconnect between the stories the Fed officials are telling and the one the market seems to be sketching makes for a mesmerizing experience akin to staring into a campfire. It is hard to look away. One of these parties will have to be wrong, but which one?
On Predictions… and Being Wrong
Happy New Year! The end of the year is all about reflection and the beginning of the year is all about looking forward. With that spirit in mind, today is a good day to think about looking ahead and what that means in finance.
The Year is Almost Over. Have You Funded Your HSA?
With the year swiftly coming to a close it’s time for taxpayers to think about those year-end financial housekeeping items. While there are many topics to consider such as year-end tax deadlines, portfolio allocation, and the cost of the holidays, what we’re thinking about today is Health Savings Accounts or “HSAs.” Today we’ll review HSA contribution limits and deadlines, the value of HSAs as a tax planning and retirement planning tool, and investing your HSA balance.
Is the Market Telling Us the Worst is Behind Us?
Last Thursday was the largest single day gain (+5.54%) for the S&P 500 Index since 2020. The Nasdaq Composite (+7.35%) and Dow Jones Industrial Average (+3.69%) had similarly high-flying performance. So, what happened on Thursday, what should we take away from it, and what does that mean going forward?
Fear, Greed, and the In-Between
“Let me be clear on one point: I can’t predict the short-term movements of the stock market. I haven’t the faintest idea as to whether stocks will be higher or lower a month or a year from now. What is likely, however, is that the market will move higher, perhaps substantially so, well before either sentiment or the economy turns up. So, if you wait for the robins, spring will be over.” – Warren Buffett in the Fall of 2008
The Importance of Starting a Roth IRA Before You Retire
It’s common knowledge that Roth assets are a powerful savings tool that provide tax-free income in retirement. But a lot of people don’t understand the difference between Roth IRAs and Roth 401k and 403b plans. If you have a large Roth 401k or Roth 403b balance and you don’t have a Roth IRA yet, you’ll want to listen to the rest of this video.
