The show airs on WDIY Wednesday evenings, from 6-7 p.m. The show is hosted by Valley National’s Laurie Siebert CPA, CFP®. This week, Laurie will discuss:

“Contemporary Issues in Financial Planning.”

Laurie will take your calls on this subject and other financial planning topics at 610-758-8810. WDIY is broadcast on FM 88.1 for reception in most of the Lehigh Valley; and, it is broadcast on FM 93.9 in the Easton/Phillipsburg area; and, it is broadcast on FM 93.7 in the Fogelsville/Macungie area – or listen to it online from anywhere on the internet. For more information, including how to listen to the show online, check the show’s website www.yourfinancialchoices.com and visit www.wdiy.org

OK! I am coming out of the closet. I have kept a closely guarded secret for over 15 years: I AM A PITTSBURGH PIRATE FAN!! I am thrilled to see their recent success. For those who do not follow baseball closely – the Pirates have been the worst team in Major League Baseball during the last 18 years. What a terrible losing streak ending with a total meltdown last year when they finished with the worst record in all of baseball. This year, a new manager, a new philosophy AND pitching gives this team a chance. I am not the only one saying this: the last 4 home games have been complete sellouts (The first time ever for the 11 year old PNC Park). Not bad for a team with a total team payroll that is a fraction of the Yankees or the Phillies. Pittsburgh has the fever and it’s not even football season.

Hoping that the slowing U.S. economy will reaccelerate this fall, the U.S. stock market bounced back from its recent correction with a rousing 5.6% rally last week to register its best week in two years.

The buying spree was egged on by improving—though hardly inspiring—economic cues. Greece’s parliament approved an austerity plan and persuaded German banks to permit a rollover of its debt, which prevented Europe’s volatile mess from worsening, for now. Reality also began to outshine our shrinking expectations: An index measuring Midwest manufacturing activity rebounded to 61.1 in June from 56.6 in May, while Nike (ticker: NKE) padded its market cap by $5 billion, or 13%, last week after it surprised investors with stronger-than-expected quarterly sales and profits.

Most of all, the surge pointed to the market’s pent-up buying impulse. Before last week, stocks had absorbed seven losses in eight weeks, yet Wall Street rarely wavered from its consensus view of this economic soft patch as a passing—and ultimately buyable—phase. From their late-April peak, stocks took more than six weeks to decline 7.2%, but just a third of that time to bounce back almost 6% since mid-June.

It helps, of course, that the drag from Japan’s disaster will eventually pass, and that oil has eased 17% from its 2011 high. Corn futures corrected 10% Thursday after the Agriculture Department reported especially exuberant crop planting in June. These might help slow inflation and ease the strain on consumers, all while the U.S. central bank remains supportive and China nears the end of its credit-tightening campaign.

But after last week’s rally, the posse of stocks straining above their 50-day averages has swiftly swollen to nearly 60% from 16% just two weeks ago. Greece has momentarily reduced its interest burden, but not the heft of its outstanding loans, and worries linger about Portugal, Ireland, Italy and Spain. The European Central Bank also is expected to raise interest rates this week, which risks choking off the continent’s already frail recovery.

On Friday, stocks kicked off July with a 1.4% gain as investors cheered a rebound of the ISM manufacturing index to 55.3 in June following a sharp decline to 53.5 in May. But more than half the increase was due to rising inventories, new orders barely ticked up to 51.6 from 51, and export orders shrank enough to raise the unwelcome specter of China’s waning appetite.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended the week up 648 to 12,583, and the 5.4% gain was its biggest since July 2009. The Dow Jones Transportation Average climbed to an all-time high, adding 6.4% last week to stretch its three-week run to 9.6%. The Standard & Poor’s 500 rallied for five straight days to reach 1340, with last week’s 71-point gain its biggest since March 2009. The Nasdaq Composite Index jumped 163, or 6.2%, to 2816, while the Russell 2000 added 42, or 5.3%, to 840. Other risk assets also jumped, with crude oil climbing 4.2% for its first gain in five weeks, but copper fell 4.7%.

The rally helped narrow June’s losses to 1.2% for the Dow, 1.8% for the S&P 500, 2.2% for the Nasdaq and 2.5% for the Russell. The Dow finished the second quarter up 0.8%, its eighth gain in nine quarters, but the S&P ended a three-quarter run and pulled back 0.4%. The Nasdaq and the Russell also absorbed small quarterly losses of 0.3%, and 1.9%, respectively (Source: Barrons Online).

Last week, US Stocks and Foreign Stocks increased. Bonds were declined. During the last 12 months, U.S. STOCKS outperformed BONDS.

Returns through 7-1-2011	1-week	Y-T-D	1-Year	3-Years	5-Years	10-Years
Bonds- BarCap  Aggregate Index	-1.0	2.6	3.7	6.5	6.5	5.8
US Stocks-Standard & Poor’s 500	5.3	5.6	27.3	–  .4	-1.8	1.2
Foreign Stocks- MS EAFE Developed Countries	5.1	3.5	28.3	– 3.9	-1.2	3.1

Source: Morningstar Workstation. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Indices are unmanaged and cannot be invested into directly. Three, five and ten year returns are annualized excluding dividends.

Rory McIlroy’s championship at the 2011 U.S. Open was historic and record setting. He is a needed inspiration to fill the vacuum caused by Tiger Woods’ fade. My own take on Rory is that it’s wonderful especially since he, along with last year’s champ, Graeme McDowell, both hail from Northern Ireland, the Riddle family’s ancestral home. Imagine, a small country the size of Northern Ireland with less than 2 million residents producing 2 consecutive U.S. Open Champions!

This is the second of three articles discussing the urgent need for the US to get its financial house in order or face the consequences. Our objective is to help you understand the implications of this ominous trend and provide the strategy to protect your wealth.

If the U.S. were forced to account for its debts like Apple or Exxon, its debts would equal a whopping $76,000,000,000, 000 ($76 Trillion). That is an enormous number, so large that it is difficult to imagine. To understand how large this number is consider this: it equals $244,000 for every man, woman and child in the U.S. – and, it is growing at $17,000 per year.

The U.S. Government reports its deficits and debts using “cash accounting”. Under cash accounting, the government makes no provision for future Social Security and Medicare benefits in the year in which those benefits accrue. However, this is not Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (“GAAP”) which corporations like Exxon, Microsoft and Apple are required to use. GAAP basis includes year-for-year changes in the net present value of unfunded liabilities in social insurance programs such as Social Security and Medicare.
As the Obama administration prepares to finance a Fiscal Year 2011 budget deficit expected to top $1.6 trillion, the American public is largely unaware that the true negative net worth of the federal government reached $76.3 trillion last year.

That figure was five times the 2010 gross domestic product of the United States and exceeded the estimated gross domestic product for the world by approximately $14.4 trillion.

According to the U.S. Department of Commerce Bureau of Economic Analysis, U.S. GDP for 2010 was $14.861 trillion. World GDP in 2010, according to the International Monetary Fund, was $61.936 trillion

The U.S. government cannot cover such a shortfall by raising taxes, as there are not enough untaxed wages and salaries or corporate profits to do so. Other measures must be taken to reduce future expenditures (Source: The World Press).

“Until you commit your goals to paper, you have intentions that are seeds without soil.”

Author Unknown

Last week NEGATIVE developments were in balance with POSITIVE developments, and the markets remained uncertain as a result.

Positives:

1) Merkel/Sarkozy and hopefully the ECB coalesce around the idea of a voluntary debt rollover which Fitch thinks would not be a technical default but some sell job must be made to convince current holders to buy new bonds
2) After 8 of 9 weeks above estimates, Initial Jobless Claims below forecasts but still above 400k for 10th straight week
3) Multi-family housing starts outlook a positive for construction
4) May Retail Sales a touch better than feared
5) 7 month low in mortgage rates lead to 6 month high in refi’s
6) RBI and PBOC take more steps to slow inflation, soft landing?
7) Chinese retail sales and IP hang in May

Negatives:

1) Even with more help, Greece will never be able to pay back what is owed and the inevitable action to bond holders gets pushed further into the future
2) Philly and NY mfr’g survey’s unexpectedly fall into negative territory
3) NAHB builder survey falls to 13 from 16, bad gets more bad
4) Auto production falls for 2nd month due to Japanese supply issues
5) US CPI now running 3.6% y/o/y, the most since Oct ’08
6) NFIB small business optimism falls to lowest since Sept
7) Chinese bank loans rise 100b Yuan below expectations, M2 growth slowest since Nov ’08, PBOC again hikes RR and RBI lifts rates to sacrifice growth for price stability, soft landing?

The U.S. stock market ended a six-week slide and eked out its first weekly gain since late April, but don’t exhale just yet.

Late Friday, the market held on to narrow gains and remained on alert, as Germany and France huddled with the European Central Bank to devise a rescue plan for Greece, which has been roiled by protests against austerity measures.

Europe’s drama—and how a Greek default will affect banks—isn’t the only source of uncertainty. On one hand, money managers have recently pared back risk, turning defensive health care, consumer staples and utilities into the only sectors clinging to gains this quarter, and many pros are holding cash they’re eager to put to work. But on the other hand, the majority still sees today’s economic soft patch as temporary and expects growth to pick up anew in the second half. That means any evidence to the contrary can still test our tetchy consensus and trigger more selling.

Since late April, skittish investors have already pulled more than $15 billion from U.S. stock mutual funds and shoved nearly $29 billion toward bond funds.

As traders fled risk, U.S. high-yield funds saw their largest weekly outflow in a year. Investors have also yanked $6 billion from commodity exchange-traded funds since late April, and hedge funds’ exposure to commodities is “approaching neutral” for the first time since late 2010, notes JPMorgan strategist Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou; yet “hedge funds appear to be long equities, far from the capitulation levels of last summer.”
It helps that two major drags—the disruptions following Japan’s disaster, and high energy costs—are set to moderate in the coming months. Last week, crude oil absorbed its fourth loss in five weeks, slipping 6.3% to $93 a barrel, down from $114 less than two months ago.

It also helps that expectations have shriveled swiftly, even if Wall Street analysts are still slow to trim their 2011 profit estimates. Retail sales in May fell for the first time in 11 months, but the 0.2% decline from April was smaller than economists feared. Best Buy (ticker: BBY) saw margins squeezed by promotions and indifferent shoppers, but the 12% drop in first-quarter profit wasn’t as bad as analysts forecast, and shares jumped 9% last week.

The stock market has pulled back 7% over six weeks since late April. That’s on par with the 6.4% retreat over four weeks, from mid-February to mid-March. Yet on some level, this second correction of 2011 felt more ominous—unfolding, as it did, continuously amid European uncertainty, with commodities flailing and as our market-supporting Federal Reserve prepares to end Act II of its benevolent quantitative-easing opus. Our Fed chairman is scheduled to make an appearance this week, and he’s sure to say something soothing. But rising shelter costs and the widening of year-over-year core inflation, to 1.5% in May from 1.3% in April, limits the kind of promises he can coo.

Meanwhile, a Greek bailout should placate the market, but expect a real rally only if the European Central Bank cuts interest rates. While the ECB has nudged rates higher just once recently, the Euribor rate, a gauge of banks’ appetite for euro lending, has risen 0.87 percentage points since early 2010—effectively raising the cost of credit for all Europe.

Weaker European nations can’t handle a period of rising funding costs, “and the debt markets appear to be echoing this sentiment,” says Michael Darda, MKM Partners’ chief market strategist. “We do not believe the austerity/bailout policy will work unless the ECB reverses course and begins to ease aggressively.”

Last week, US stocks increased slightly, bonds were unchanged, and foreign stocks decreased.  During the last 12 months, U.S. STOCKS outperformed BONDS.

Returns through 6-17-2011	1-week	Y-T-D	1-Year	3-Years	5-Years	10-Years
Bonds- BarCap  Aggregate Index	0.0	3.3	5.4	7.0	6.7	5.8
US Stocks-Standard & Poor’s 500	.1	1.0	12.2	-3.9	-2.3	.7
Foreign Stocks- MS EAFE Developed Countries	-1.0	-.7	16.4	– 7.0	-1.0	2.6

Source: Morningstar Workstation. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.  Indices are unmanaged and cannot be invested into directly.  Three, five and ten year returns are annualized excluding dividends