News

Will 2018 be another banner year for the stock market? Financial experts make their forecasts

Make it two in a row for the former stockbroker who is now a business professor at the University of Nebraska at Omaha.

For the second straight year, George Morgan has won the annual Omaha World-Herald equity challenge, having made the most accurate forecast for the 2017 closing of the Standard & Poor’s 500, beating out a slate of competitors that includes the area’s top money managers and wealth advisers. Read more

Financial Tips 2018: How to get ahead on taxes, savings and insurance

It’s 2018 and now’s the time to get your finances in order.

To help you and your family make all the right money moves next year, here’s a financial game plan that could help you grow your 401(k), avoid financial ruin and adjust to the new tax rules signed into law by President Trump. Read more

What’ll Cause Next Market Downturn?

Today’s article is by Scott Kubie, CFA, Senior Investment Strategist of Omaha, Nebraska-based Carson Group.

A stock’s long-term value is derived from three factors: growth, cash flow and risk. As the equation below shows, the constant growth model estimates fair value by dividing the cash flow one year from now by the difference between the required rate of return and the constant growth estimate. Read more

Building My Practice: What Farmers and Financial Advisors Have in Common

Ron Carson on Why Advisors Should Embrace Complexity

When Ron Carson thinks about how his financial planning firm has changed over the years, he likens it to the Nebraska farm he grew up on and still owns.

Forty years ago, he worked the soybean, corn and alfalfa fields with his dad, while his mom tracked the commodities’ prices with charts plastered across the kitchen walls. Today, there are sensors and Wi-Fi connected devices. The farm has grown tenfold, to 10,000 acres, and its payroll boasts technology experts, biochemists and other PhDs. Read more

How are Nebraska’s biggest public companies performing in the stock market?

Halfway through 2017, only two of Nebraska’s big publicly traded companies have outpaced the broader stock market.

Ag-irrigation and road infrastructure company Lindsay Corp. has more than doubled the almost 9 percent gain in Standard & Poor’s 500 index so far this year. And Omaha-based trucker Werner Enterprises has beaten the S&P 500 benchmark by a few percentage points. Read more

Protect against the fastest-growing crime: cyber attacks

Cyber theft is the fastest-growing crime in the U.S., and cost the global economy more than $450 billion in 2016, with more than 2 billion person records stolen. Read more

A cancer scare didn’t doom this couple’s retirement

It isn’t every day that a couple can choose to step away from the workplace earlier than anticipated. But that’s exactly what Mark, 64, and Holly Batchelder, 58, of Omaha, Nebraska, did. Read more

Ron Carson Ranks in Barron’s Top 100 Independent Advisors for 10 Years Straight

When Ron Carson’s college football career at the University of Nebraska got sidelined by an injury in 1983, he quickly found another pursuit: selling life insurance. Read more

3 Key Financial Events to Watch In 2017

Published By Brett Carson

Last year saw financial markets alternating between an uneasy calm and turbulence, with 2017 expecting much of the same. Developed markets are facing a paradigm shift as the U.K. initiates its exit from the European Union and the United States’ transition to the Trump administration brings political and policy risks to the fore. Read more

Is Your Financial Advisor a Fiduciary?

Published By Brett Carson

Financial advisors will have a new regulation to deal with starting April 10: It’s called the fiduciary rule, and it’s the biggest legal change governing the financial advice industry in years. Read more