Five Tax-Smart Investing Strategies for 2025
Tax-smart investing is a dynamic and ongoing process. You can keep more of your hard-earned money by leveraging tax-advantaged accounts, prioritizing tax-efficient investments, and staying proactive about ever-changing tax laws. As 2025 unfolds, make it the year you take your tax strategy to the next level—because it’s not just about what you earn; it’s about what you keep after tax. Here are five strategies that help to maximize what you keep when it’s time to pay Uncle Sam. 1. Maximize Tax-Advantaged Accounts Tax-advantaged accounts remain a cornerstone of intelligent investing. These include: 401(k)s, IRAs, and Roth IRAs: Contribute the maximum [...]
Thoughts On: The 6 Ps of Financial Happiness
We all know that the job of a money manager is to make people money. As difficult as that can be, the job of the client service manager is even harder. Client service has to make people happy. You might think that if you make people money, then they will be happy; but, I have learned you have to make people happy first so they can stick around long enough for you to make them money. It is a classic “which comes first, the chicken or the egg” dilemma. If I don’t make them happy, then I can’t make them [...]
Looking Toward 2025
Here’s a quick update on what we’re paying attention to as we come to the end of 2024: Markets Stocks: The market overall is expensive on almost all common metrics: market cap to GDP, price to sales, etc. We are very wary of the most popular, most expensive stocks that have done so well lately. A handful of VERY pricey tech stocks are driving the DOW, S&P500, and NASDAQ, Bond: The bond bull market ended in 2020 after almost 40 years. Long rates have risen for almost 4 years now, and bond prices have been DOWN for 4 years in [...]
Letter to My Daughters: On Making Investment Decisions
I’ve written to you about Passive Investing and Financial Freedom, and now I want to give you some tangible things you can do to realize that dream of Financial Freedom. The process is to: List what you are trying to do and assign dates and dollars (if possible) to those goals. Here’s a link to an example of how that looks. Create a balance sheet and an income statement. The balance sheet is a list of what you own and what you owe. The income statement lists what you make, what you spend, and what you save. Here's a link [...]
Five Strategies to Maintain Your Investment Focus After Election Day
Five Strategies to Maintain Your Investment Focus After Election Day Whether your preferred candidate won or lost on election day, the 2024 election results have alleviated a degree of market uncertainties, prompting a positive market reaction. We recommend approaching this post-election moment with measured optimism while staying true to sound investment principles. Here are five strategies to help you navigate this new political and economic environment: Markets React to Uncertainty: The post-election rally reflects the removal of ambiguity rather than a guaranteed economic windfall. Stick to your long-term goals and resist chasing short-term gains driven by political news. Rebalance If [...]
Five Key Moves for Generation X Before Retiring
As Generation X (born between 1965 and 1980) approaches retirement, planning is more critical than ever. Sandwiched between baby boomers and millennials, Gen Xers have faced unique economic challenges, including the dot-com bubble, the 2008 financial crisis, job changes, and, most recently, the pandemic. These experiences have reshaped retirement realities, making it essential for them to adopt proactive financial strategies. Here are five key moves to consider before hanging up the proverbial work boots: Maximize Catch-Up Contributions At age 50, Gen Xers can make “catch-up” contributions to their retirement accounts, such as 401(k)s or IRAs. These higher contribution limits are [...]
Thoughts On: The Yo-Yo Problem with Investing
The job of a professional money manager is to make people money. As difficult as that is, the job of the client service manager can be even harder. Client Service has to make people happy. I used to think that if we made people money, then they would be happy. I have learned we have to help people be happy long enough for us to make them money. Out of necessity, I have formulated some ideas about helping people be happy about their investments. The most critical (and some might think the most obvious) lesson I have learned is that [...]
Thoughts On: Corrections, Crashes, Recessions, and Inflation
On Tuesday, August 6, I had two separate conversations with two very different people: a client with a million-dollar portfolio and a friend who has some Bitcoin. And they asked the same question, “What should I do?” I had not been paying attention to the world since Thursday, so my first question was “About what?” They replied, “The Market!” and caught me up on all the terrifying things that were happening. Once I was up to date my immediate (and terse) response was “Nothing, don’t worry about it.” They found that less than satisfactory and asked me to elaborate just [...]
Thoughts On: Active and Passive Investing
I had the opportunity to talk with students in the Finance Department at Duquesne University about Active and Passive Investing. We covered a LOT of ground in a short period of time and ran into the problem of trying to drink from a fire hose. So, I’m writing on the topic in the hope of a more coherent presentation. The topic of Active and Passive Investing suffers from a severe bootstrap problem because each term has multiple definitions, the concepts have changed over time, and you keep having to go one level deeper to make sense of things. It’s fascinating, [...]
Letter to My Daughters: On What Grandpa Taught me
Girls, you know how I can get sentimental about family sometimes. This is one of those times. As you continue to make your way in the world, I think about how much Grandpa has tried to teach me over the years, and how important it is to me to pass those ideas along to you. Here are my “Top 10”: 90% of life is mental. This includes work, school, sports, happiness, everything. Your body, heart and soul will follow your mind. Decide you are a hard worker, decide you are happy, and you will find that you are IN FACT those [...]