Pinnacle Wealth Managers help clients with their finances at every stage of life—from youth to retirement. With the members of the Class of 2016 taking their first steps into the adult world, we asked our Wealth Managers what financial advice they would offer a recent graduate.
These are their responses.
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The beginning of 2016 started in an emotional frenzy, as world markets dropped sharply out of the gates on fears of a sputtering world economy, plummeting commodity prices, a stubbornly hawkish Federal Reserve, and a decelerating earnings backdrop. The violence of the move in January was stunning, and by early February the number of world markets that had fallen more than 20% from their highs clearly argued that a bear market across the globe was taking place. But with share prices falling so fast, gloom quickly took hold and set the market up for a rally off the lows. What has unfolded since mid-February is a rally to the upside that has been just as violent and abrupt as the drop in markets that preceded it. The genesis of the rally was likely too much short term pessimism and oversold conditions, but it was also aided by more European central bank intervention and a Federal Reserve that was forced to pull back some of its hawkish rhetoric.
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Is a portfolio worth $500,000 a lot of money for retirement? How about $1 million? What if you’ve saved $5 million? I get asked this a lot, and I find it helps to reframe the question: Is $2,000 a month a lot of money? What about $5,000 a month? Or $10,000?
When you look at it this way, you probably already know your answer. That’s because we generally conceive of wealth in terms of current income and not assets. Think about it: We pay income taxes and see our tax withholding on every pay stub, and we routinely deal with monthly bills and expenses that must be paid with current income.
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Pinnacle partner and Wealth Manager Deb Kriebel is the 2016 President of the Financial Planning Association of Maryland (FPA). We spoke with her about her new role with the FPA, the organization’s purpose and activities, and her plans for 2016.
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With the Federal Reserve recently raising interest rates for the first time in many years, the U.S. economy may be at the beginning of a transition away from the ultra-accommodative monetary policy environment that has existed since the global financial crisis. However, central banks in other major developed economies are not following suit—in fact, they are still trying to counteract the current low growth, low inflation economic environment.
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As the laws governing how financial professionals guide client retirement assets are set to change, financial advisors are being required to place the interests of their clients first. With this change, all advisors must not only recommend investments that are suitable for their clients, but more importantly, they must act as a fiduciary and place their clients’ interests ahead of their own.
So how will this affect the investments of Pinnacle clients? It won’t.
DetailsWe are pleased to present a recording of “Bearish Tendencies (and Silver Linings),” our 2016 Inside the Investment Committee event, which gave attendees an inside look at the thoughts, views, and strategies of our investment team. Table of Contents (To go directly to a speaker, drag the round video playhead to the time listed below.)…
DetailsHear Ken Solow discuss presidential politics, the national economy, global markets, and your money on Dan Rodrick’s Roughly Speaking podcast. To fast forward to Ken, click on the 51 minute mark.
2015 had many twists and turns, but from a financial market perspective, it was effectively a road to nowhere when looking across a variety of asset classes. In U.S. equity markets, large company stocks (large cap) barely moved as just a few sectors and stocks were big winners. In the broad market, many stocks performed far worse than the large cap averages and gave investors the false impression that the market was generally flat. On the contrary, a broader measure of the market which consists of 1700 equally weighted stocks was down roughly 7% on the year, and helps to highlight how skewed the major indices were, due to just a few large companies that had good years.
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With the new year upon us, it’s a good time to make sure your plans for the future are up to date and you have the proper tools in place. With that in mind, we encourage you to consider the five estate planning tips below.
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