Mahatma Gandhi said, “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” A 2008 study by Harvard Business School found that giving money to someone else lifted participants’ happiness more that spending it on themselves. These good feelings are reflected in our biology. In a 2006 study, the National…
That’s a question many investment advisors are hearing these days when they dare to answer the phone. Understandably, the investor sees the stock market reaching new highs, then they look at their portfolios and see either no gains, or a gain considerably lower than the one posted by the stock market. Indeed, the S&P 500 is up 10% so…
For many professionals, especially recent graduates, student loan debt is not only an expense item on their budget, it is also a major component of their financial trajectory and often a great source of anxiety. Indeed, the data show that in 2018, Americans are more burdened with student loan debt than ever before. In addition…
The third quarter saw mixed performances across the major asset classes. Large cap U.S. stocks surged, developed international equities and U.S. bonds were flat, while emerging market equities and commodities experienced modest losses. The clear winner for the quarter and year to date has been the U.S., as domestic investors have been rewarded with sizable…
In the world of finance, there is an SEC guideline called the “Accredited Investor” rule that limits the public’s ability to invest in unregistered securities unless the individual meets certain income and/or net worth standards. Or stated more simply, the SEC limits those riskier private investments to more affluent – and presumably more “sophisticated” –…
Sophisticated investors pay attention when someone brings up the topic of portfolio risk management. Affluent investors are often the most risk averse, perhaps because they have already accumulated enough money during their lifetime to achieve their financial planning objectives. Having reached their accumulation goals, they don’t want to lose their hard-earned gains because the financial…
How much money do you need to retire? It’s a familiar question with an unsatisfying answer: it’s complicated. It depends on how much you’ve socked away, how much income you’ll have coming in, how much you plan on spending and how long you live. There’s no one size fits all, it’s unique to you. To…
In 1996, the 529 plan was created under the Small Business Job Protection Act to give taxpayers a tax-advantaged way to save for their children’s college education. As part of the 2001 Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act, all the earnings in the plan were made completely tax-free if they were used for college.…
Earlier in the year, we wrote about how the new Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) will affect your income tax planning. The new tax bill also impacts estate planning by increasing the federal estate tax exemption to $11.2M for individuals and $22.4M for couples. While this high federal exemption level means that very few will need…
In the second quarter volatility waned and performance decoupled as divergent backdrops created variances in returns for assets classes and markets across the globe. The winning trades for the second quarter were in the U.S. energy sector, U.S. small companies, and a select group of technology and consumer discretionary stocks. Energy thrived on a rising…
