Ask yourself, “What will my golden years hold for me?” Is the answer a comfortable home near a golf course? Free time to spend with your grandchildren? Or even a cross-country journey or trip around the world? Whatever your answer may be, the goals you dream about today can be yours tomorrow–if you understand what is required to fulfill them, set a course to meet the challenge of doing so, and seek solid professional assistance along the way. Understand Why Planning is Needed While your retirement date may still be several years in the future, and the goals you dream about today may seem even more distant, it is never too early to begin preparation. A look at factors that affect the future of all retirees can help you focus on the importance of preparing for the future now. Consider the following: Increased longevity and early retirement are giving Americans more “golden years” to enjoy–and to plan for. Inflation, whether high or low, affects investment dollars steadily, year-by-year reducing their “real” value and, thereby, reducing the purchasing power you will have to make your retirement dreams a reality. Escalating medical costs affect both young and old, but can be devastating to retirees on a fixed income. Determine How Much You Will Need for Your “Nest Egg” What will you need to pursue your retirement goals? By completing the “Checklist for Retirement Planning” which follows, you can see where you are now, where you need to go to pursue your goals, and what you need to do to help manage the journey confidently. A Checklist for Retirement Planning Once you have identified your goals and attached a monetary value to them, you should survey your

Tax aware investing focuses on optimizing your returns by reducing your tax liability as much as possible. In theory, this investment strategy has the potential to help you earn more money on your investments, but you need to be aware of some potential pitfalls. When getting started with tax aware investing, you may want to avoid the following practices. 1. Don’t Exclusively Let Taxes Drive Decisions With tax aware investing, you always need to keep the tax implications of your investment decisions in the back of your mind, but you cannot let this single factor drive all your decisions. Just as you do with traditional investing, you also have to weigh the potential for gains when choosing between different investments or deciding if you want to sell an investment. You also need to keep in mind your tolerance for risk, your budget, your long-term investment goals, and multiple other factors while investing. 2. Don’t Just Take Pre-Tax Gains Into Account Ultimately, the goal of investing is to realize a gain, but when you’re looking at the potential gain of an investment, you should not just consider the amount earned. Instead, you should calculate the amount earned minus the potential tax liability. To give you an example of how these elements may affect your decision making process, imagine that you buy some stocks. You earn a healthy return on the stocks so you want to sell them, but if you sell right away, you face short term capital gains which diminish the value of your return. To ensure you optimize your returns, you crunch the numbers and decide to keep the investment for a few more months. This is possible because

2020 has been a year of records, both record losses and record gains. After a brutal spring, markets and the economy have mostly rebounded in the summer and fall. We take a closer look at October 26’s record gross domestic product (GDP) report, which may have implications for the upcoming presidential election. Record Growth in the Third Quarter The outbreak of COVID-19 and the subsequent lockdowns triggered the largest quarter-over-quarter decline in GDP since WWII, so perhaps it comes as no surprise that the following quarter tallied the sharpest rebound in that same time period. GDP grew 33.1% annualized in the third quarter, ahead of Bloomberg consensus estimates of 32% and reversing much of the economic fallout stemming from COVID-19-related lockdowns. The largest segment of the US economy—consumer spending— rebounded in a big fashion, while business investment and inventories also helped fuel the surge in growth [Figure 1]. Residential investment also gained momentum in the third quarter, driven by pent-up demand, the work-from-home trend, and historically low mortgage rates. The Consumer Emerges from Lockdown Consumer spending comprises roughly 70% of the US economy, so the imposition of stay-at-home orders that limited consumer activity was the primary driver of the contraction in GDP in the second quarter. As these restrictions were lifted, pent-up consumer demand carried over into the third quarter, rebounding in a big way relative to the contraction of the second quarter [Figure 2]. However, the “tale of two economies” remains evident in consumer spending trends. In particular, spending on goods has outpaced spending on services. In the September release of personal consumption expenditures, goods spending grew by 2.2% month over month, while services spending grew by a softer 0.8%, highlighting

Many of you already have estate documents, probably executed many years ago. You need an estate attorney to look over your documents every 10 years or so. Here are a dozen points to review. Do you have a will and powers of attorney for health care and property? These are part of every complete estate plan. With health-care power, you choose an agent to act on your behalf if you become unable to make your own decisions. With durable power for property, you select an agent to act if you are incapacitated and can’t sign a tax return, make investment decisions, make gifts or handle other financial matters. Make sure your health-care power addresses the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. This governs what medical information doctors can release to someone other than the patient. Do you need to change any beneficiaries, executors, trustees, guardians or others named in your documents? Are all still living? Can someone you recently found fill a role better? Any updates needed to addendums to your will that specify who gets what of your personal property? Often I read wills that mention addendums for personal property and the addendums don’t even exist. Did you move to a different state since the execution of your estate documents? If so, seek out a local estate attorney to check any legal differences for planning between your old and new states. Do you still need your trust documents or can you decant, which allows you to change some provisions? Consider this technique of emptying the contents of an irrevocable trust into another newly created trust if you are unhappy with your irrevocable trust. Not all states allow decanting. You

Sometimes people get caught up in the numbers so much that they forget why they’re saving for retirement. At the beginning of your career, you may not have known what you wanted to do. Now that you’ve officially joined the ranks of pre-retirees — people who are around five or ten years away from retiring1— you probably have a much better idea of what you want. It’s time to put that perspective to work. Here are eight steps to get you started. 1. Make a Wish List One of the first things you should do when you’re securing your income is to decide how you want to use your money2. This makes a big difference in how you will position your assets over the next few years. Some things to consider are whether you want to do some traveling, make large purchases or sell significant assets, such as your home. 2. Determine Your Financial Situation After you decide what you want your money to do in an ideal situation, then you can figure out the reality of your accounts3. Begin by determining your net worth. Take all of your assets and subtract all of your debts. Make sure to do this in an organized way — you will want to reference each line item and its corresponding value later. Here are some examples of items many pre-retirees include in this list: Each retirement account Valuable assets, such as cars, homes or antiques Individual securities Investment brokerage accounts Secured and unsecured debts   3. Identify Strengths and Weaknesses After you take a look at your finances, you will want to form a strategy. A good way to start is to do

The race for the White House is down to the homestretch, and although presidential candidate Joe Biden is comfortably ahead in the election polls, various market and economic-based indicators suggest the election may be much closer than many are expecting. Support For A Biden Victory Various polls show former Vice President Joe Biden comfortably in the lead in the 2020 presidential race, although in some battleground states the race appears to be quickly tightening. Influential states like Ohio and Pennsylvania may even be a coin toss at this point. Not surprisingly, approval ratings can play a large part in forecasting the overall percentage of the votes in an election. Only two presidents have lost reelections since the Great Depression: George H. W. Bush and Jimmy Carter. Not surprisingly, both had low approval ratings leading up to the elections. If the people don’t approve of the job you’re doing, you may not serve a second term. Recent Gallup polls suggest that President Donald Trump’s approval rating is 43%. Using a regression of previous elections, this equates to less than half of the two-party vote [Figure 1]. Of course, Trump received less than half of the popular vote in 2016, but he still won the election because he had more than 270 votes in the Electoral College. Still, the polls currently favor Biden, and this appears to be his race to lose. How well specific “Biden stocks” have done could be another clue that a Biden victory may be around the corner. Our friends at Strategas Research Partners created a basket of stocks likely to benefit from either a Trump or Biden presidency, and the Biden portfolio has done extremely well lately. Areas

When you’re a small business owner, you need to pay extra careful attention to both your business and personal finances. Your financial planning strategies should simultaneously encourage the success of your business while also working towards safeguarding your personal finances. To pursue that balance, check out these tips. Separate Your Business and Personal Goals As a small business owner, you eat, sleep, and breathe your business, and in most cases, your personal finances are strongly dependent on the success of your business. However, you need to establish separate business and personal financial goals. Take time to think about what you want your business to achieve and to outline your revenue and profit goals, but also look at your personal goals. Think about how you want to live, investments you want to make, when you want to retire, and other personal financial goals. Then, make sure your small business strategy supports those personal goals. Be Careful About Financing Your Business Personally A lot of entrepreneurs finance their own businesses, and of course, using savings or personal loans and credit cards is often essential as you try to get your business off the ground. But ultimately, you want to avoid carrying personal liability for business debts. Try to explore less risky funding options such as bringing on investors who put money into the business in exchange for a share of the profits. Additionally, consider incorporating or establishing your business as a Limited Liability Company (LLC). Then, you can take out loans in the business’s name without incurring personal liability. Tax Plan Strategically As a small business owner, you have to think about your personal and business tax liability. Work with an accountant

Markets have come a long way since the March lows, but we believe there may be more room for stocks to run. Given the impressive economic recovery to date and improving underlying technical and fundamental conditions, we think small cap stocks in particular may have attractive growth potential. Despite election and COVID-19-related risks, we see further gains ahead. Not Out of the Woods, But Improving The significant impact of COVID-19 on the US economy has created unprecedented levels of uncertainty for investors, with a heated election as the cherry on top for 2020. Investors have had a lot to digest since markets bottomed in March, and the virus is not yet under control, but the US economy is certainly in a much better place today than it was in the spring. While we previously have favored large cap stocks due to their strong balance sheets and resilient earnings during this recession, we highlight three reasons we have been warming up to small cap stocks. Early-Cycle Environment Favors Small Caps We believe the latest recession is over and the new economic expansion has begun. The Federal Reserve of Atlanta’s GDPNow updated its forecast to 35% gross domestic product (GDP) growth in the third quarter on an annualized basis, potentially confirming our view that the recession has ended. While we acknowledge the immense amount of uncertainty facing the economy, along with the growing risk that there may be no additional fiscal stimulus until after the election, we stop short of calling for a “double dip” recession. Given our view that we’re in the early stages of the business cycle and a new bull market, we point out that small cap stocks historically

As the saying goes, “50 is the new 40″—and with Americans living longer than ever before, it’s not unusual for those in their 50s, 60s, or even 70s to be in their peak earning years.1 But for those who would prefer the option of an early retirement, it can be helpful to revisit your net worth (and investment strategy) at each milestone age to make sure you’re on track. In Your 30s By your 30th birthday, experts recommend that your retirement savings equal your approximate annual income.2 They also recommend you have 2 times your income saved by age 35. But one’s ability to save for retirement (or invest outside their retirement accounts) largely depends on the job market they graduated into. Many members of Generation X and Millennials may not have found a career-focused position until their 30s, giving them a later start on saving than others. When investing in your 30s, it’s important to remember that perfect is the enemy of good. Even if you can’t afford to max your retirement accounts yet, saving a little at an early age can reap major rewards in the future. And with 30 years or more until retirement, you can afford to take a little more risk (which might also yield higher returns) than someone who hopes to retire within the decade. In Your 40s In your 40s, experts recommend you have three times your income saved in retirement accounts like a 401(k), IRA, or Roth IRA. For many, the beginning of their fifth decade can mark greater career stability and earning potential than ever before, making this an ideal time to save. On the other hand, one’s 40s can also

When the markets are shaky, it can be tempting to rely on political headlines or pending legislation to time your entry or exit points. However, letting politics drive your investment decisions can be a costly mistake. Learn more about what helps market trends endure beyond political administrations and why you should ignore the noise and focus on your investment fundamentals. Politics’ Long-Term Impact (or Lack Thereof) on Markets How much do political decisions really impact the stock market in the long term? Not much, as it turns out. Although politically-charged situations like Brexit or the Tax Cuts and Jobs Acts did create momentary market moves, over the long term, the stock market has tended to trend upward regardless of the action (or inaction) taken by any particular administration or President.1 Political news can certainly contribute to short-term market swings, but—absent some independently-corroborated change to a stock or index’s fundamentals—the market’s initial reaction to political news is usually short-lived. As a result, it’s important to tune out the “noise” of daily political news and instead focus on your long-term goals and investment horizons. Simply doing an internet search for “stock market crash in [year]” will yield dozens of projections and predictions of another Great Depression that never came to fruition. Listening to these types of political doomsayers can lead you to avoid a healthy amount of risk in your investment portfolio. Stay the Course with Appropriate Asset Allocation Volatility can be part of investing no matter who is in office. But if the amount of volatility in your portfolio makes you uncomfortable or triggers thoughts of cashing out after a string of poorly-performing days, it may be time to revisit your asset