While Q3 ended on a sour note (September), indexes made up for it with a strong Q4 to close out the year. Stocks continued to climb the proverbial “wall of worry”, overcoming concerns about inflation, Omicron, and failure of the fiscal stimulus (Build Back Better plan) getting passed. Here’s how some of the major market…
Sequence Risk
There is no doubt that there is a lot to think about when planning for retirement. While we have a degree of control over many of the choices involved, there’s one big wild card called sequence risk. It’s come up in several of my recent conversations, so I wanted to address it here. Sequence risk…
6 Creative Paths to Retiring
How often do you think about retirement? According to studies, most of us think about it a lot — at least four times a week! We think about when we’ll retire and how we’ll spend our time in retirement. And as exciting as that can be, it can also be nerve-racking to think about trying to…
Six Financial Best Practices for Year-End 2021
Believe it or not, another year has rounded third base, and is dashing toward home plate. That said, there’s still time to make a few good plays in 2021, while positioning yourself to score more in the year ahead. Here are six financial best practices for the record books. Keep Your Eye on the Ball….
Keys to a Better Life
What would make your life better? A new house or car? A bigger paycheck or bank account? It’s easy to want more when you think of being happier and living better. And there’s little doubt that money can buy some (more) happiness. But the happiness we get from money is fundamentally limited. It leaves us…
Marginal Versus Effective Tax Rates
It is no secret that the IRA tax code can be confusing. Filers sometimes misinterpret rates and end up believing they must pay more than they usually do. Understanding marginal and effective tax rates are important for tax planning purposes. A funny anecdote is the story of Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Every year…
Q3 – 2021: Brandon’s Quarterly Market Commentary
The month of September ended on a sour note, with most indexes dropping for the first time in many months. The moderate decline was enough to erase the quarter’s prior gains, resulting in a relatively flat quarter. The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished the quarter slightly negative, and the S&P 50 was slightly positive (see…
Tax-Wise Financial Planning
In my previous piece, I covered some tools of the tax-planning trade, as well as how to deploy them for tax-efficient investing. But tax planning isn’t just for your investments. Life happens. Often, we cannot predict its next moves. But we can weave each event into the tax-planning fabric of your financial life. Following are…
Tax Planning: Tools and Techniques
Whether you’re saving, investing, spending, bequeathing, or receiving wealth, there’s scarcely a move you can make without considering how taxes might influence the outcome. No wonder people get nervous when there’s lots of talk about higher taxes, but little certainty on what may come of it, and who it might affect. How do we plan…
SPACS, NFTs, and Other Jungle Creatures
“The American marketplace is an economic jungle. As in all jungles, you easily can be destroyed if you don’t know the rules of survival. … But you also can come through in fine shape and you can even flourish in the jungle—if you learn the rules, adapt them for your own use, and heed them.”…
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