WKYT's video: Money Matters with Josh Smith - December 22 2020

Months of back and forth on a stimulus deal finally produced an agreement. Proposals in the trillions were whittled down to under 1 trillion. Still the second largest stimulus in the history of country, fiduciary financial planning advisor Josh Smith of Strategic Wealth Designers joined the newscast to highlight who’s going to benefit the most. He says it’s a positive that both sides were able to come to an agreement. See the full story at https://WKYT.com/MoneyMatters “We’ve been hearing about this package for what feels like forever at this point,” Smith says. “In a last minute addition, direct payment checks are sliding back into the bill which will help some of the lower earners of the country. It was also good that they reduced the level of unemployment benefits that will be given because now we don’t have a situation where people would be offered their position back but were now making more by not working , so that compromise should work out well for the economy as it recovers. Small businesses will also have an opportunity for an additional PPP loan should they need it which is good. The one thing we still don’t have many answers for is how we end up paying for trillions of stimulus dollars doled out in 2020, that should have everyone concerned for the long term.” To many in the general public, the coronavirus has lasted much longer than expected, Smith believes 2021 is going to start very slow before the economy picks up in the second half of the year. “The stimulus package will help, there’s no question about that, in reality it’s like dropping a dump truck of sand in the ocean,” Smith says. “Sure that dump truck of over $900 billion looks big at the moment, that is until you consider the trillions upon trillions of dollars lost due to the pandemic restrictions. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like the first quarter or even the first half of the year are going to get rolling back to old times. Hopefully by July, we are seeing a world with a greater sense of normalization, allowing recovery to take hold but it’s going to be a walk before we run recovery for sure.” For those looking for a big breakout year in the stock market next year, Smith cautions that many sectors are going to continued to be suppressed. He says the age old adage ‘time in the market and not timing the market’ will be key. There could be some setbacks coming as the economy tries to get on a path that is similar to the stock market as opposed to what has occurred in the second half of 2020, where the market rises while the economy struggles with a recession. To see additional stories surrounding business and economic news for the Lexington area, visit https://WKYT.com/MoneyMatters and if you have a question for Josh send an email to info@swdgroup.com.