Posts by Nicholas Hoffman and Company

Much has been said over the last several years about the death of traditional retail. Failing malls, troubled national department stores, and increasing utilization of online shopping strengthened the narrative. However, following an initial post-COVID fall, the sector rebounded, suggesting some of the concerns may have been overstated. In today’s uncertain real estate markets, with…

My wife and I recently became grandparents. Our grandson is now 14 months old, and our granddaughter is 3 months old. Through phone calls from our daughters and visits, I have reflected on the stages of being a parent. Stage One – What are we doing? After watching our daughters adapt, I realized that during…

The principles of fiduciary law have been around since the Romans. Chinese, Japanese, and British law incorporated these ideas. Even Judaic, Christian and Islamic scriptures address these principles. Today, fiduciary rules are prevalent in many areas of American law including employment, banking, and medical. The concept of being a good fiduciary is rooted in the…

It was a sunny Thursday morning in 2014 and the bank I was working at had just opened. I was sipping a cup of coffee and ready to greet our first customers as they entered our lobby. In walks a woman who was visibly upset and, on her phone, seemingly taking instructions from someone on…

I live in Decatur, Georgia, a small, usually sleepy little town of around 27,000 residents. For context, that’s about the size of Key West, Florida or Bar Harbor, Maine. According to local legend, in the 1830’s, Decatur residents voted down the opportunity to become a railroad junction. A new location, originally named Terminus, was created…

I have just returned from teaching the “Money & Responsibility” program we run at Clare College, which is part of Cambridge University. We had one of the largest classes of students since the program started in 2009.  Students came from all over the United States as well as Uzbekistan and Egypt. Regardless of the diverse…

On Monday, August 5th, the U.S. stock market gapped down at the open, dropping as much as 4.25% intraday before recovering to close down by 3%. This marked the sharpest single-day decline in nearly two years. The market recovered over the following days. By the end of the same week, the Monday losses were fully…

In the wake of the 2008 Global Financial Crisis (GFC), the financial services industry underwent a comprehensive review, leading to significant regulatory reforms. Among these, the emphasis on fiduciary duty for Registered Investment Advisors (RIAs) emerged as a critical differentiator from other financial service providers. Let’s delve into why fiduciary duty is not only essential…

Short term drama tends to distract attention from long term thinking. There is no current shortage of short-term drama when it comes to American daily life. So, we should ask: what long-term issues are being downplayed, or outright ignored, as our attention is grabbed by bizarre and tragic events? Some people might argue that climate…

Last week a significant IT outage rippled through global systems, which ironically was triggered by a defect within a software update made by the global cloud cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike. The update caused approximately 8.5 million Microsoft 365 cloud devices around the world to malfunction, and fixing the issue has required complex patches that have taken…