Good Afternoon Valued Clients, Friends & Family,
This week I took a business trip to Boise, Idaho, with my VP of Operations, Shawn Covarrubias. Our road trip began in Southern California with our first stop in Las Vegas, Nevada. We arrived at the strip for lunch and saw restaurants were packed and most everything was open. Our next stop was Ely, a small town at the northern part of Nevada about two hours from Idaho. We had not made a hotel reservation because we thought we could easily find a room when we got there. To our surprise, all the hotels/motels (on a weekday!) were sold out for the night. So, we grabbed a cup of coffee and continued our journey to Twin Falls, Idaho. Later that night, we were finally able to get our hands on one of the last hotel rooms. This goes to show that our economy is re-opening, and that people are feeling more comfortable getting out and about. The daily COVID cases continue to decline in the U.S. and the markets experienced another week of volatility.
Here’s a photo of Shawn and me at Shoshone Falls in Twin Falls, Idaho.
On Tuesday, California announced that Orange County has moved into the yellow tier alongside 12 other counties, the most lenient of COVID-19 restrictions. Reaching the yellow tier allows greater capacity in the following sectors: restaurants, gyms, sports venues, movie theaters, museums, and amusement parks, to name a few. California state officials have set a goal to fully re-open the state’s economy by June 15th. Please see below for the most updated California county tiers:
It certainly seems like markets have been on a rocky road trip of their own the past couple weeks. However, even with the rockiness from this week, as of last Friday’s close, the S&P 500 is only down -0.3%, the Nasdaq is up +0.8%, and the Dow is down -0.8%. Investors are still primarily concerned with rising inflation and a quickening economic recovery that could lead to the Federal Reserve having to take a step back. This uneasiness has led to a risk-off mentality in multiple risk assets that include stocks and cryptocurrencies. Although the volatility with crypto, Bitcoin specifically, can be attributed to many factors of the risk-off, profit-taking, and tweet-tension variety. In addition, relative to their highs, the markets haven’t been set too far back. The S&P 500 is 1.7% off its high, the Dow is 2% off its high, and the Nasdaq is 4.3% off its high.
I enjoyed being on the open road for the past few days. What I found most interesting was how busy the roads, towns, stores, and restaurants all were. I love the experience of visiting small towns and going places I have never been before. Now that COVID numbers are looking better and restrictions are being lifted, I encourage everyone to take a moment to enjoy the fresh air and maybe visit a place they have never been before.
Please don’t forget to register for our Long-Term Care Needs and Solutions webinar on May 26th at 1 PM. Click here to register and learn more. Have a wonderful weekend and please call (888) 253-0288 if you would like to schedule a review with your wealth manager or email Sunni at sunni@apriem.com.
Safe Travels,
Rhonda Ducote
President