How much are your “all in” costs when working with an advisor? If you don’t know, you’ll want to figure it out. I regularly meet with prospective clients who are shocked when I look at their statements and add up all the fees. In most cases, a good portion of their...
With tax season underway, it’s a great time to ask your accountant about the tax efficiency of your portfolio. The conversation-starting strategies we mention below aren’t designed to avoid taxes. Rather, they allow you to be more tax-aware in your decisions. Let’s review some red flags to watch out for...
If you’ve been watching or reading the news this week, it appears that the GOP tax bill will likely be signed by President Trump in the coming days. This has prompted many conversations in our office around what we can do to help our clients take advantage of the impending...
Smart investors exercise discipline, which sounds practical and unsexy. They focus on strategies that really work over the long term rather than get caught up in short-term events. They also understand the work of behavioral economists on topics like overconfidence, recency bias (decisions based on recent events), home country bias, loss...
The cost spread between actively managed funds and indexed funds is not driven only by the management fee that ostensibly pays for an advisor's expertise. Other somewhat hidden costs also drive up the true price of an actively managed fund. John Bogle, founder of Vanguard, recently wrote a paper called The...
The popularity of indexing has never been stronger after a banner year for US stocks in which indexed stock funds outperformed most actively managed funds. This raises an obvious question: Should investors put all their money in index funds and dispense with managers’ fees? The data clearly shows that indexing...
It’s interesting how often business leaders struggle to fully trust the manager and advisor of their wealth – the person overseeing and guiding most, if not all, of their financial details. Like anything, there are differing degrees of relational impact caused by trust issues, but the three main culprits of...
Many people don’t realize that the wealth management industry is not very old and has really taken shape only in the last several decades. In that time, the breadth of services provided has changed dramatically, while the way advisors are compensated hasn’t changed much at all. Could it be time...
Not everyone needs to withdraw money from their portfolios right now, but for many, it will happen sooner or later. With uncertainties high and appetites for risk as low as government bond yields, it’s more important than ever to stretch your portfolio dollar longevity. Becoming a miser and living in fear...