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Portfolio Strategy Review Q1 2023

Bank-run fever drove the headlines as the Clickbait culture helped fuel SVB’s stunning and rapid descent. Signature and Silverlight banks followed suit. Out came the shameless charlatans of all...

It’s a Bailout: Taxpayer Dollars Hard at Work

Several people have had concerns about the recent bank failures. The short version of this article is that the three bank failures we have witnessed in the past week appear isolated to firms with...

Portfolio Strategy Review 2022

Overview The reset of 2022 was a painful reminder that investment fads and cycles can shift direction with little warning. Diversification helps mitigate risk, but it isn’t perfect. Bonds typically...

Portfolio Strategy

Latest Posts

Portfolio Strategy Review 2022

Overview The reset of 2022 was a painful reminder that investment fads and cycles can shift direction with little warning. Diversification helps mitigate risk, but it isn’t perfect. Bonds typically are a reliable and stable diversifier when stocks decline, but the...

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Portfolio Strategy Review Q3 2022

Overview The primary financial headline is the same: Inflation is over 8.0%; Interest rates are still rising. With a lot of political and economic drama beneath the surface. In the time honored tradition, the party in power takes more credit or gets more blame for the...

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Portfolio Strategy Review Q1 2022

"I need ammunition. Not a ride."  History Lessons from War, Appeasement, and Markets It’s useful to compare the events in Ukraine against history because we all have a stake in the outcome. In 1938, Hitler annexed Austria; and demanded a portion of Czechoslovakia that...

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Portfolio Strategy Review 2021

Overview Between the pandemic that won’t go away and the politics of the day, US stock markets shrugged it off and delivered extraordinary returns in 2021. At least we are closer to the end of the pandemic. The politics I’m not so sure about. Economic growth forecasts...

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401k & Retirement Planning

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Calm, Care, & Caution

Calm, Care, & Caution How to stay calm during challenging times? The late Vanguard founder John Bogle used to say that in times of market turmoil, “Don’t just do something. Stand there!” His point was that panic selling after market declines guarantees loss....

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Investment Discipline

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The January Effect

According to the zany theory called the January Effect, they are supposed to go up.  January was rough across most markets. The doomsayers, armed with historical data, were out in full force predicting the “mother of all bear markets” is just around the corner. And...

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Business Valuations

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Exit Planning

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The Purpose of Your Buy-Sell Agreement

A Buy-Sell agreement (BSA) serves several key purposes for business owners. A well-articulated BSA creates a ready market and liquidity to a selling owner, and should establish price, terms, and financing for the transfer. In short it spells out a process so that all...

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Advice That Matters

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The Conflicted Sale

A referral from a trusted adviser like one’s CPA usually helps to mitigate risk in selecting an investment adviser. However, just because a CPA works with numbers and is tax savvy doesn’t mean they are fully aware of the many potential conflicts that an adviser's...

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Personal Planning

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Proposed Tax and Planning Updates

I spent 2 days last week at a continuing education conference with Ed Slott & Company. This is my third year in the program. Slott has been a thought leader in retirement and distribution planning for over thirty years. My Master Elite membership gives me full...

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Medicare Nightmares

Plan Enrollment Errors: Advance Planning is Good Medicine Combine the federal government with the US tax and healthcare systems and what do you get? One very complicated maze of rules and regulations called Medicare! Medicare’s complex rules are confusing and can...

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Reading For Results

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Conserving Client Portfolios

Conserving Client Portfolios During Retirement by William Bengen Written in 2006, Bengen popularized what is known as the “4% Rule.” This work on distribution and withdrawal planning for sustainable retirement income has become the de facto standard against which...

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The Remarkable Story of Risk

Against the Odds: The Remarkable Story of Risk by Peter L. Bernstein   “Likeness to Truth is not the same as Truth” I found the historical breadth and depth of this work remarkable as the title suggests. Bernstein takes us on an interesting evolutionary path of...

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