If you’re a parent, you may recall the first time your child used your own words against you. That’s the moment you knew just saying “Because I said so” would no longer get the response you wanted. From that day forward, you would have to use logic to get the preferred behavior from your children. (I’m aware I’ve omitted screaming, threats, bribery, and, in extreme cases, crying.)

Over the years, we’ve repeated on numerous occasions “that time in the stock market is more important than timing the stock market.” One works; the other rarely does. The market's rapid rise over the past ten years has many market observers calling for a bear market, a correction, or X number of years of sideways growth. Other prognosticators believe this is a new era and that artificial intelligence will make companies more profitable, thus lifting stock prices. Like most other predictions, the truth is likely somewhere in between the two extremes.

If you think your name, Social Security number, address, and other identifying information are not available on the so-called dark web, reconsider your position. In fact, if we just assume a lot of our personal information is already available for sale, we can act accordingly.