Wisdom for Your
Financial Journey

Blue Trust's Winter 2023 newsletter explores how Christians can align their financial decisions with their values, featuring new resources and investment options like Access Portfolios that enable values-based investing while maintaining biblical principles of stewardship and generosity.

On January 19 the U.S. reached its $31.4 trillion borrowing limit. Since then, the U.S. Treasury has resorted to “extraordinary measures”1 to extend the U.S. government's ability to continue paying its expenses without breaching the debt limit. The Treasury will likely exhaust its options sometime between June and September, at which point it will reach the so-called “X date” when the U.S. government can no longer pay all of its obligations on time.

Women today manage many responsibilities such as caring for aging parents, managing children's education and schedules, volunteering, and working full-time — whether inside or outside the home. With numerous demands on their time and energy, even women who are knowledgeable and equipped to make financial decisions find that their finances often fall to the bottom of their priority list.

During Black History Month, Blue Trust's CEO, Nick Stonestreet, and manager of strategic partnerships, Ruth Malhotra, had the opportunity to have a conversation with Dr. Michael Patterson, founder of Be A Peace Maker, and Durwood Snead, a retired pastor and co-founder of the African American Descendants of Forsyth Scholarship.

Note: This article contains excerpts from chapters of Leverage: Using Temporal Wealth for Eternal Gain (Kenneth Boa and Russ Crosson, Trinity House Publishers, 2022). It may only be reproduced by permission of the publisher. The book is available to purchase from http://trinityhousepublishers.org/ store and Amazon.com. It's often said that our calendars and checkbooks (or, these days, our mobile banking records) reveal our true priorities.

Putting Generosity into Practice At Blue Trust, stewardship is a central component of our approach to managing money. We believe that “God owns it all” and we are simply stewards of His blessings and resources. But how do we define stewardship, and more importantly, how do we put it into practice wisely?

The Federal Reserve's aggressive interest rate increases throughout 2022 aimed to combat inflation without triggering a severe recession, a delicate balancing act that shaped market performance. This review examines inflation's causes, the Fed's policy response, midterm election outcomes, historic rate hikes, and crypto market turbulence to help investors understand the economic landscape.

Stock market declines, like the one we experienced this year, occur regularly. Since World War II, U.S. stocks have declined 10% or more from their all-time peak on 18 occasions—approximately once every four years. A couple of months ago, U.S. stocks were 25% below where they began the year. Although they have rebounded some, they remain down around 15% (as of 11/30/22).

In our “Wisdom for Wealth. For Life.” podcast series, we share financial advice and wisdom from our network of wealth advisors and thought leaders in the industry, and from around our community of over 9,000 financially blessed families who apply biblical wisdom to their financial planning and giving.

The primary cause of The Great Recession in 2008-2009 was the collapse in the U.S. housing market. Fourteen years later, this industry is the focal point again as housing has become unaffordable for many Americans. Before the last housing bubble burst, price appreciation peaked at 14.5% (on an annual basis). This time, prices increased more rapidly peaking at 20.8% in March of 2022.

In our “Wisdom for Wealth. For Life.” podcast series, we share financial advice and wisdom from our network of wealth advisors and thought leaders in the industry, and from around our community of over 10,000 financially blessed families who apply biblical wisdom to their financial planning and giving.

The Federal Reserve's aggressive interest rate hikes aim to combat persistent inflation, though the strategy risks triggering a recession. This analysis examines current economic conditions including elevated CPI readings, mixed recession signals, rising rates, and their implications for long-term financial planning and portfolio diversification.