One simple -- yet powerful -- measurement of stock market health is to assess whether companies are making more money today than they were one year ago. There are currently about 4,000 publicly-traded companies in the U.S. The Leuthold Group (a Minneapolis-based research and investment firm) compiles the earnings data for all 4,000 of those companies on a monthly basis. Specifically, they are reviewing the Earnings Per Share (EPS) data, which is reported quarterly by each of the 4,000 companies.

The Federal Government likes to tell us what “inflation” is on a regular basis. The inflation number is widely debated, and for good reason. Often times the math doesn’t quite line up with the stated inflation percentage. Over the past 50 years, the printed inflation number from the government has typically ranged from 2.75% - 3.75% (when considering a longer time frame during those 50 years).

Ah, market timing. The holy grail of investing, right? If I can see the next big crash coming, I can avoid steep losses and thereby grow even wealthier. It sounds great, but it really is a fool's errand. A handful of clients have recently asked for our prediction of what stocks will do following this election. We know that if a small number of clients are verbalizing this concern, then likely more of our clients privately have similar questions or concerns about the markets.

The S&P 500 bottomed in the Global Financial Crisis on March 9, 2009. Since that date, there have been 16 separate declines of greater than 5% during this Bull Market. There have been four corrections of greater than 10%.

It is hard to remember the event as vividly now, but when the United Kingdom voted to leave the EU on June 23rd, the nonstop news cycle said Brexit was a really big deal. In the course of just two days, pundits cried out that trillions of dollars were "lost" in global stock markets. The S&P 500 Index tumbled more than 5% in those two days.

Question: Which country's stock market offered the highest annualized real returns (net of inflation) from 1900 - 2015? Answer: South Africa, with annualized real returns of 7.3% over that time period. The next-best competitor has been Australia, with annualized real returns of 6.7%.