Happy Valentine's Day

Enjoy your Valentine's Day with your family and friends. At the end are some Valentine's Day facts for your enjoyment. Another client joined the Christian Stewardship Retirement family this week, it is always an honor to have another family member.

Recent newsletters have been about having a snowstorm in the stock market even though we are in the spring phase of the business cycle. From a weather perspective, we had a very snowy week with certain cities reaching a record level of snowfall such as Washington D.C. The stock market rose this week, perhaps a partial reason was the shutdown of the Federal Government and the lack of news.

After a month, we finally had a weekly increase in the stock market. It feels like the stock market snowstorm has ended and hopefully sanity will prevail. While most of the corporate earnings have met or exceeded expectations, the stock market has maintained focus on other issues. Sooner or later companies with good earnings performance will be rewarded.

This past week, Ben Bernanke spoke about when the Federal Reserve will change its current economic policy months down the road. From a business cycle perspective, this means that economic policy will change as the business cycle changes from spring, where we are now, to summer. When summer arrives, the economy will be growing at the desired rate, which is 3%, and the Fed has stated that interest rates will be raised to maintain the desired growth rate. Before interest rates rise, long term bonds and mutual funds that invest in long term bonds should be sold.

While it is winter weather outside with lots of cold and snow it is spring time in the economic business cycle. In the future, the winter weather will end and spring will begin. In the future, the economy will continue to improve leading to better corporate earnings and a higher stock market.

Valentine's Day Facts:

Every year around 1 billion Valentine cards are sent across the world. After Christmas it’s a single largest seasonal card-sending occasion. Teachers receive the most Valentine's Day cards, followed by children, mothers, wives, and then, sweethearts. Children between ages 6 to 10 exchange more than 650 million Valentine's cards with teachers, classmates, and family members.

The most beautiful and incredible gift of love is the monument Taj Mahal in India. Built by Mughal Emperor Shahjahan as a memorial to his wife it stands as the emblem of the eternal love story. Work on the Taj Mahal began in 1634 and continued for almost 22 years and required the labor of 20,000 workers from all over India and Central Asia.

In America, the pilgrims used to send confections, such as sugar wafers, marzipan, sweetmeats and sugar plums, to their affianced. Lots of value was placed on these gifts because they included what was then a rare product, sugar. After the late 1800's, beet sugar became widely used and more available, and sweet gifts continued to be cherished and enjoyed.

In the Middle Ages young men and women drew the names from a bowl to see who would be their Valentine. They would wear this name pinned on their sleeves for one week. This was done so that it becomes easy for other people to know your true feelings. This was known as "to wear your heart on your sleeve".