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Yearly Archives: 2022

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Pixabay photo

By Michael E. Russell

Michael E. Russell

What a week!  Monday the Dow rose 765 points.  Tuesday the Dow rose 826 points.  Wednesday the Dow lost 40 points, a well-deserved rest. Back to the new reality.  Thursday the Dow dropped 347 points followed by a loss of 630 points on Friday. Still, a gain of 1.5% for the week. 

Is the market building a base at these levels? Were the gains of the past week what we used to call a “dead cat bounce” in a Bear market?  Really hard to say.

Earnings are starting to weaken while consumer debt increases. An example of the cost of debt this year is as follows: Let us say that a family wishes to purchase a home while secured a $480,000 mortgage. Last year the cost would have been $2023 per month with an interest rate of 3%. That same mortgage presently would cost $3097 per month with a rate of 6.7%. Over a 30-year period you would pay an additional $385,000 in interest. These increases are taking a substantial portion of the middle class out of the real estate market. This is only one segment of a problematic economy.

Expectations of how many more rate increases the Federal Reserve will make is a big part of what is driving the price action in the stock market. The present administration is having a problem with conditions overseas.  President Biden just met with the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. It was hoped that this meeting would lead to a production increase of 2 million barrels of oil per day.  

Guess what? Upon Biden’s return, the Saudi’s announced a decrease of the same 2 million barrels per day. Productive meeting! On top of this, the President stated that we are facing a “potential nuclear Armageddon” the likes of which have not been seen since the Cuban Missile Crisis that President Kennedy faced in 1962. Nice thought to go to sleep with!!

Time to ease up a bit. The Federal Reserve cannot start cutting rates until the Consumer Price Index drops in half from its current level of 8.3%. In the meantime, investors should be taking advantage of U.S. Treasury yields. The 30-year bond is yielding 3.6% while the one- and two-year notes are yielding in excess of 4.1%. This is called an inverse yield curve.  4.1% for one year sure beats the 0.001% the banks are paying. Not very neighborly!  

We may be getting close to a market bottom plus or minus 10%. Many financial “gurus” are suggesting a large cash position in investor portfolios. Brilliant! This after a decline of over 30% in the market. Where were these people in January and February?  

Is crypto currency a viable investment now?  Bitcoin was supposed to be an inflation fighter. However, the worst inflation since the early 1970s has coincided with a 60% drop in Bitcoin’s price over the past year. It was also stated that Bitcoin is “digital gold.” Not proven true. Gold itself has outperformed Bitcoin, losing just 6% of its value. 

Ethereum, which is the second largest blockchain, has had a major upgrade which may fuel money going into crypto. Readers need to do their own research pertaining to crypto. My last thought on this topic: crypto strategist Alkesh Shah of Bank of America still feels that bitcoin and other cryptos are still viable long-term investments. As an aside, I really don’t have a long-term horizon. 

On a pleasant note, my wife and I just returned from Scotland where we visited our granddaughter at the University of St. Andrew, an incredible experience.

The economy there is booming. We did not see vacant store fronts. Much pride was shown in their communities; cleanliness and politeness were everywhere. I was very interested in the opinion of the Scots vis a vis the vote to break from the UK. 

I will breakdown opinions in three groups. The youth have little interest in the monarchy, the senior citizens still admire the monarchy due to their memories of WWII. The 40–60-year age group I found most interesting, although my questions were asked at a single malt scotch distillery. The point was made that Scotland is a land of 5.5 million, like Norway and Sweden. The British Pound is in free fall, which is threatening government and corporate pensions. The Scots are upset over Brexit. They wished to stay within the European Union. 

As we get closer to Thanksgiving, let us hope that the Russian people put pressure on Putin to leave office or better yet, the planet. Best regards to all and enjoy this beautiful Fall season. 

Michael E. Russell retired after 40 years working for various Wall Street firms. All recommendations being made here are not guaranteed and may incur a loss of principal. The opinions and investment recommendations expressed in the column are the author’s own. TBR News Media does not endorse any specific investment advice and urges investors to consult with their financial advisor. 

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Photo from Vanderbilt Museum

The rained-out October 2 show by the Porsche Club of America (Metropolitan New York) at the Suffolk County Vanderbilt Museum, 180 Little Neck Road, Centerport has been rescheduled for Sunday, October 16. Tickets for the original date are valid.

The show is open from 11:00 am to 5:00 pm. Cars will be displayed on the estate grounds with a spectacular view of Northport Bay.

Visitors pay only general Museum admission.There is no extra charge to attend the car shows. Adults $10; seniors (62 plus) and students with ID $9; children 12 and under $7.

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Image from Michael Ardolino

By Michael Ardolino

Michael Ardolino

The market is shifting; sellers and buyers will still see home price appreciation and gains in their equity.

How does the shift affect home prices?

Demand remains higher than supply, so home prices are appreciating, and sellers will still get a good amount of offers even if it takes a bit longer. In Suffolk County, houses appreciated nearly 10% and higher since last year and more than 50% got over the asking price. Sellers are still making a significant profit.

The steep incline of market values and buyer rush is now pacing itself and most experts predict the appreciation will continue. David Ramsey, a personal finance personality, says, “The root issue of what drives house prices almost always is supply and demand…” and we couldn’t agree more. When priced correctly, houses are still selling at record-high prices and low days on the market.

Certainty of equity

One certainty in a time of uncertainty, mixed news, and mixed predictions, is the value of equity in real estate. According to CoreLogic’s 2022 Q2 Home Equity Report, “the total average equity per borrower has now reached almost $300,000, the highest in the data series.” 

The year-over-year equity percentage for U.S. homeowners with a mortgage has increased 27.8%; this is a $60.2K average equity gain.

Selma Hepp, interim lead of the Office of the Chief Economist, CoreLogic, stated “For many households, home equity is the only source of wealth creation. As a result, recent record gains in equity and record declines in loan-to-value ratios will provide many owners with a financial buffer in case economic conditions worsen. In addition, record equity continues to provide fuel for housing demand, particularly if households are relocating to more affordable areas.”

Equity builds long-term wealth gain for homeowners, and should you want access to additional funds, you can always rely on the equity you’ve grown. In times of financial uncertainty, follow the certain.

The shining star

Sellers, as your home value has appreciated considerably, tap into the profit from your equity and take advantage of the current market conditions. Timing is everything and ask your local real estate professional to help you research the area you’re looking to move. Your real estate agent can also help you connect with a professional in that location with expertise in their market conditions.

Homebuyers are future sellers, and they can feel confident to invest in a home now and build their own equity knowing price appreciation is forecasted. When a homebuyer becomes a seller, they’ve already paid off some of their mortgage and can take advantage of the real estate market at the time and come out with a significant profit themselves.

Takeaway 

So, the shining star of the market is demand still predominates supply. Home price appreciation is still forecasted, and equity gains are at record-highs. A market shift can be easily navigable with the help of a real estate professional.  So … let’s talk.

Michael Ardolino is the Founder/Owner-Broker of Realty Connect USA.

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Recently, 1,150 members of the LGBTQ+ community participated in including Micah Schneider, from Ronkonkoma, above. Photo rom Lisa Czulinski

In a first of its kind survey of 1,150 members of the LGBTQ+ community on Long Island, Stony Brook Medicine found that people in this group struggle with numerous health care challenges.

Stony Brook Medicine’s Dr. Alison Eliscu was the principal investigator of the study that 1,150 members of the LGBTQ+ community recently participated in. Photo from Stony Brook Medicine

Over two in five people responding to an online survey between June and September of 2021 said they were in fair to poor mental health. Additionally, about one in three people had thoughts of self harm, while 23.9% had seriously considered suicide within the past three years.

People in the LGBTQ+ community are struggling with mental health and access to care, while they also have had negative experiences with health care providers, who may have been making incorrect assumptions about their lives or who haven’t respected them, said Dr. Allison Eliscu, principal investigator of the study and medical director of the Adolescent LGBTQ+ Care Program at Stony Brook Medicine.

Partnering with 30 Long Island-based community leaders and community organizations, including Planned Parenthood, Stony Brook Medicine created the survey to gather the kinds of data that could inform better health care decisions, could provide a baseline for understanding the needs of the LGBTQ+ community in the area, and could shed light on the disparity in health care for this community.

“The idea [for the survey] came out when we were creating the Edie Windsor Healthcare Center” in Hampton Bays, Eliscu said, which opened its doors in 2021 and is the first such center for the LGBTQ+ population on Long Island. “We were trying to think about what we want [the center] to provide and what does the community need.”

Without local data, it was difficult to understand what residents of Long Island, specifically, might need.

The data suggests a disparity between the mental health of the LGBTQ+ community in the area and the overall health of the population in the country. 

Over half of the people who took the survey indicated that they had symptoms of chronic depression, compared with 30.3% for the nation, based on a 2020 PRC National Health Survey. Additionally, 23.9% of the LGBTQ+ community described a typical day as “extremely or very stressful” compared with 16.1% for the nation.

To be sure, the national data sampling occurred just prior to the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, in February of 2020, while the Stony Brook Medicine survey polled residents during the second year of COVID.

Nonetheless, Eliscu suggested that her anecdotal experience with her patients indicates that the LGBTQ+ community likely suffered even more during the pandemic, as some people lived at home with relatives who may not have been supportive or with whom they didn’t share their identity.

Additionally, the isolation removed some LGBTQ+ residents from an in-person support network.

Stony Brook Medicine has taken steps to provide specific services to residents who are LGBTQ+. People who are transitioning and have a cervix continue to need a pap smear.

Some members of the transgender community may not be comfortable going to a gynecologist’s office. Stony Brook Medicine has put in place extended hours to meet their needs.

Micah Schneider, a social worker who lives in Ronkonkoma, served as a survey participant and also as a guide for some of the wording in the survey.

Schneider, who identifies as nonbinary and transgender and prefers the pronoun “they,” said the survey can help people “recognize that we’re not alone.”

When Schneider was growing up, “I had a sense that I was the only person in the entire world dealing with this,” which included a struggle with identity and mental illness.

“We as a community have each other and we can lean on each other,” Schneider said.

As for medical providers, Schneider suggested that this kind of survey can alert these professionals to the need to honor names, pronouns and identities and not make blanket assumptions.

Despite some improvements, the local and national LGBTQ+ community remains at risk, Schneider said.

“There are any number of people who are actively considering suicide,” Schneider added. “It’s a very real crisis in our community.”

On a conference call announcing the results of the survey, Dr. Gregson Pigott, Suffolk County Commissioner of Health, described the survey, which Stony Brook plans to repeat in a couple of years, as “groundbreaking. What you have here is hard data based on the survey.”

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Above, members of Port Jefferson Fire Department and the local EMS after their technical rescue training. Photo from Port Jefferson EMS
By Julianne Mosher

It takes a village – literally.

Located on opposite sides of Port Jefferson, the Port Jefferson Fire Department and Port Jefferson EMS recently converged outside the Village Center at Harborfront Park for a training exercise that was quite the spectacle. 

A dozen volunteers from both agencies staged a scenario Sunday, Oct. 9, in which a person “fell” over the ledge of a nearly 40-foot wall, located on East Broadway, and said the “patient” could only be accessible by lowering a rescuer down to get them.

Christian Neubert, third assistant chief of the PJFD, noted a real-life example using this technique could be if someone were to fall into an open construction area with a finished basement but no stairs. 

So, to train for an instance like this, the two groups strapped up individual rescuers from both the fire department and EMS, and lowered them down using a rope to the parking lot below to assess, package and retrieve the patient. 

A look at the volunteers bringing their ‘patient’ to safety during the recent drill by Port Jefferson Fire Department and Port Jeff EMS. Photo from PJFD

Back above, other volunteers created a five-to-one haul system to pull both the patient and rescuer back to safety.

These specific agencies coordinate frequently on different types of calls, as many fire departments and EMS often do. But Michael Presta, deputy chief of the Port Jefferson EMS, said that the partnership between Port Jeff’s fire department and the separate EMS — which supports not only the village, but provides services to Belle Terre, Mount Sinai and Miller Place — has been ongoing for quite a few years, and this technical rescue training they practiced on Sunday is an indicator on how these two teams can work together. 

“There’s a lot of fire departments that provide technical rescue services in a confined space — different kinds of specialty disciplines — but there’s not a lot of patient care centered activity that goes on in a lot of these places,” Presta said. “We had a great conversation a few years ago and said, ‘Hey, it’d be really great to work together jointly with both departments and work on getting paramedic-level care down to these patients.’”

Presta said that not every scenario is the same when it comes to an emergency. People might be trapped somewhere for an extended period of time or have a complicated injury that requires care, pain management, airway management or bleeding control in a technical rescue environment.

“We thought, ‘What better way than to get the paramedics, train them in technical rescue and get them down to those patients?’” he said.

Neubert added this type of training is not easy. “There’s a lot of knowledge and skill that has to go into it, and you need to have the type of student that is ready to learn,” he said. “It’s different than basic firefighting skills.”

And Sunday’s training created an atmosphere allowing both firefighters and paramedics to work together as a team.

“It doesn’t matter what organization you were volunteering from,” Neubert said. “When we started that drill the other day, we gave the scenario, they found the job that needed to get done and they just did it.”

And once that patient is secured by whichever volunteer is first on scene, paramedics begin to administer the care that someone would find in the hospital emergency room right on the spot. 

Technical service rescues might seem niche and relatively rare, but Presta said that one could really never know.

“In this small little community here, we have a couple of hospitals, we have a power plant, train station, major transportation, the ferry. So, there are a lot of opportunities, I’d say, for people to get injured in very tricky situations,” he said. “Whether you’re down in the engine room of a ship, or in a confined space in a power plant or injured on the roof of the hospital, in this community there could be a lot of opportunities.”

Neubert added, “Something as simple as a broken leg on the bluffs out in the cove … that’s not necessarily the same as a 40-foot wall, but it still involves rope, timing concepts and technical rescue.”

After a successful 90-minutes, and a spectacle for shoppers at the local farmers market across the park, Presta and Neubert were both satisfied with the day’s events.

“This type of training will give us the ability to help other agencies,” Presta said. “Now we’re able to provide a specialty resource like this, and they have the ability to call on us if they don’t have that training or ability or equipment. We can bring it.”

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Photo from Vanderbilt Museum

Suffolk County Vanderbilt Museum, 180 Little Neck Road, Centerport will present its annual A Morning for Families event exclusively for people with special needs and their families on Saturday, Oct. 15 from 9 a.m. to noon. Spend the morning exploring the collections, grounds, gardens, architecture, and the Reichert Planetarium’s “Open Sky.” Activities include a preserved specimen touch table and crafts. Admission is free, but advance registration is required at www.vanderbiltmuseum.org. Call 631-854-5552 for further information.

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Photo courtesy of Suffolk Federal Credit Union

Suffolk Federal Credit Union recently presented college scholarships totaling $37,500 to nine local students attending Suffolk County Community College this fall. 

“Since partnering with the college three years ago, we are proud to have sponsored 23 scholarships totaling $93k,” said Michele Dean, CEO & President, Suffolk Federal Credit Union. “By easing the financial burden of college costs, we help families in our communities as well as students—freeing up resources for other important goals.”

This year, Skyla Fabbricante of East Northport received a $6,275 scholarship from the LT Michael P. Murphy Memorial Scholarship, which was matched by Suffolk Federal for a total of $12,550. Daniel Paesano (Sound Beach) was awarded $6,275 by Suffolk Federal in honor of the Michael E. Reilly Foundation Memorial Scholarship.

Suffolk Federal Credit Union Achievement Scholarships ranging from $2,150-$6,275 were awarded to Christina Boles (Brentwood), Kristin Squire (Islip), Rachel Lee (Middle Island), Alyssia Furchert (Blue Point), Leslie Bardales Vera (Selden), Ian Fischer (Stony Brook) and Jonathan Mata (Riverhead).

The scholarships are a result of an ongoing partnership between Suffolk Federal and the Suffolk Community College Foundation to help people throughout the community achieve their dreams. Award recipients were selected based on their academic achievements, extracurricular activities, community involvement and essays.

“This scholarship program reflects Suffolk Federal Credit Union’s deep commitment to helping young people and families throughout Long Island. The recipients clearly have demonstrated the drive and discipline to succeed,” said Dr. Edward Bonahue, President of Suffolk County Community College.

“It is an honor to continue this partnership with Suffolk Federal, which has a long-standing reputation as a community-focused credit union. The scholarships are a meaningful way to acknowledge these deserving students’,” added Sylvia A. Diaz, PhD, LMSW, Executive Director, Suffolk Community College Foundation.

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Photo by Steven Zaitz
Daniella Santagata (12) , Abby Semple (14) and Lily Carr are in a celebratory mood. Photo by Steven Zaitz
Natalie McKenna, Northport's All Star Goalie took a turn on offense. Photo by Steven Zaitz
Madison Maxwell (16) battles Gianna Deitch. Photo by Steven Zaitz
Sophia Newman. Photo by Steven Zaitz
Mallory Bennett (r) fights with Jenna Pasquale for possession. Photo by Steven Zaitz
Olivia McKenna. Photo by Steven Zaitz
Madison Maxwell. Photo by Steven Zaitz
mma McLam (21) and Josie Shikarides. Photo by Steven Zaitz
Sydney Wotzak (3) stick-handles as Parris Duenas defends. Photo by Steven Zaitz
Olivia McKenna beats Sophia Newman for a goal. Photo by Steven Zaitz
Julia Cavallo. Photo by Steven Zaitz
Olivia McKenna. Photo by Steven Zaitz
Julia Cavallo. Photo by Steven Zaitz
Abby Semple (14) as Gabriella Barth defends. Photo by Steven Zaitz
Leila Toomey. Photo by Steven Zaitz
Mara Estreich of Commack battles Julia Cavallo. Photo by Steven Zaitz
Julia Cavallo scores against Commack. Photo by Steven Zaitz
Olivia McKenna had three goals against Commack. Photo by Steven Zaitz

By Steven Zaitz

Northport’s All-American field hockey goalkeeper Natalie McKenna needed a little change of scenery on Tuesday, Oct. 11.

So, with her Lady Tigers comfortably ahead of the Commack Cougars, she took off her mask and goalie pads and moved out of her cage to play a little forward.

“My teammates were trying to get me the ball,” McKenna said. “It would have been nice to have scored. Maybe next time.”

Her twin sister Olivia did score — three times as a matter of fact — in Northport’s 12th win of the season. They have now won 45 straight games dating back to the 2020 season after winning Oct. 11, 6-0. Commack drops to 3-9.

“I was trying to get Natalie the ball,” Olivia said. “I wanted her to score more than I wanted myself to score.”

Julia Cavallo, Sophia Cox and Emma McLam also scored for the Lady Tigers who peppered Cougar goalkeeper Sophia Newman with 31 shots on goal, six of which were taken by Natalie in the final eight minutes of the game. Sydney Wotzak had two assists as did McLam. Emma Fabrizio and Mackenzie Maniscalco had one assist each for Northport.

But the offensive ‘star’ was Natalie who was a menacing presence in front of Newman’s net as soon as she took her pads off.  Northport’s bench and the fans in the stands were ready to explode in the event that she scored. It was not meant to be on this day.

“Every goalie I’ve ever coached wants to play up and score,” said Northport assistant coach Libby Courtemanche. “She had a few good chances.”

Perhaps Natalie will get another chance as the Lady Tigers continue their quest for a second consecutive New York State title against Riverhead on Oct. 13 at home. The Lady Waves are 2-11. The Cougars will play Half Hollow Hills the same day at Commack.

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