Hot off the LPL Financial press: the LPL Research Midyear Outlook.

A banner for the planned 4^th of July Surfside celebration still clings to a pole as the dismal reality of searching through the rubble for survivors continues.  All the affected families, friends, and first responders are in our hearts this year on our country’s Independence Day.

Consumers are feeling better, as the Conference Board’s consumer confidence index jumped to 127.3 in June, the highest level since February 2020.  Read more.

Inflation seems to be on the rise, but LPL Research believes there are good reasons to think it will be transitory.  "Consumers and investors have seen and felt the impact of inflation.

From The Desk Of Austin A. Frye...

Tales From The Road

No Rental Cars, Too Much Hand Sanitizer

TGIFryeday!  Happy birthday to our own Nadeen Lawrence, pension administrator, who’s been lighting up the Frye Financial family with her radiant smile since 2005.

No, there really isn’t a bank account containing a gazillion dollars waiting for you to claim it.  Nor is your computer suddenly urgently in need of tech support.  And the charity asking to you to help provide sunglasses for cats isn’t a real thing. 

Unfortunately, cyber-enabled fraud continues to be on the rise.  According to the Federal Trade Commission, the number of identity theft cases more than doubled in 2020 from the prior year.¹   Many of the latest scams revolve around “social engineering” — using a false pretense to convince individuals to share personal information. The information may seem rather innocuous, and a victim might think there’s no harm in sharing it, but it could be deviously deployed later to initiate an attack.  Requests for this type of information, regardless of how seemingly urgent, charming, or threatening the circumstances outlined by the fraudster, should not be trusted. 

To that end, be on the lookout for suspicious emails, phone calls, text messages, and social media posts that demand immediate action.  Some examples include:

Sustainable investing is an umbrella term to describe a range of investment practices that seek competitive financial returns and purposefully consider environmental, social, and governance (ESG) risks and opportunities.  Sustainable investing is becoming more mainstream in fixed income markets and companies that recognize that changing dynamic may be able to avoid financially material imp

LPL Financial Chief Market Strategist Ryan Detrick reveals what LPL Financial does and does not stand for—plus, a special announcement.  View it here.

After one of the worst starts to a year for fixed income, returns may not get much better from here. Long-term interest rates have traded sideways recently but we expect rates to potentially rise further, which would put downward pressure on bond prices.