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09.18.2024
How Will Interest Rate Cuts Affect the Stock Market?
In the past few months, the U.S. labor market has started to show unmistakable signs of softening; the unemployment rate has ticked up from a recent low of 3.4% to 4.2% today. Growth in monthly payrolls has slowed from an average of approximately 250,000 to below 150,000. These statistics have gotten the Federal Reserve’s attention; […]
08.12.2024
Bonds are Working Again
Investors could be forgiven for feeling a little frustrated in early 2023 when they reviewed their year-end statements. Stocks, bonds, and real estate investments all produced negative returns in 2022, impacted by an aggressive rate hiking cycle implemented by central banks around the world. The sharp rise in interest rates led to painful corrections across […]
07.16.2024
Worried about the National Debt?
Concerns about the gross national debt, perennially in the background, have taken on a new urgency recently. Since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, total federal debt levels in the United States have been rising rapidly and are on track to exceed a record $35 trillion by the end of this year. This […]
06.19.2024
Mortgage or Money Market?
How to prioritize the order of savings is one of the most common questions that financial planners are asked. The list of possibilities is long: 401(k) or brokerage account? Roth IRA or Traditional IRA? Health Savings Account or College 529 plan? Sometimes the answer is relatively straightforward (e.g. pay off high interest debt), but many […]
05.20.2024
Why Didn’t 5% Rates Kill the Economy?
For the past several quarters, economic growth in the US has continued to surprise to the upside. While the economy tends to expand in most years, many analysts had assumed that growth would falter last year in the face of rapidly rising interest rates. In fact, by the end of 2022, the consensus view on […]
04.16.2024
Cognitive Biases in Investment Decisions
This month we have been discussing behavioral finance at Elevate, which is the study of how human psychology affects investment decisions. Behavioral finance may not have quite the rich history as the study of “rational” financial decisions, but it has nonetheless become a serious and well-supported academic discipline in top business schools across the country. […]
03.15.2024
Investing 101: Back to Basics
Welcome to Investing 101! This month we’re taking a step back to the basics of investments. Let’s delve into what investing is, explore various investment approaches, and uncover insights gathered over the years for a successful investment journey. First off, why do people invest? Well, it’s not just about making money, although that’s a significant […]
02.20.2024
Tax Planning Basics
Back To Basics With Tax Planning A truly comprehensive financial plan is the sum of many parts. While investments are an important component of any plan, tax planning can sometimes be overshadowed by investment planning, and it’s not hard to see why. Behind every potential stock investment is a company with a story, and people […]
01.23.2024
How To Keep Up With Inflation
One of the many lessons we’ve learned in the post-pandemic era is that people really dislike inflation. In poll after poll, respondents describe how inflation feels like an unfair tax levied upon them (whereas wage gains are something they have earned or deserve). Although the rate of change in prices has slowed dramatically from the […]
12.11.2023
The Allure of Cash
Earning interest on cash savings is back in fashion again. After being starved for yield for more than a decade, investors are flocking to money market funds, CDs, and short-term Treasury bills that are paying interest rates above 5% today. Cash yields are even more impressive when compared to inflation; after subtracting the annual rate […]
12.07.2023
Unlocking the Power of Donor Advised Funds
We recently welcomed guest speaker William (Bill) Hewitt, an Enterprise Account Executive at TIFIN, to walk us through the benefits of Donor Advised Funds (DAFs) in an informative Webinar. In case you missed it, here are some key takeaways. TIFIN is an AI and innovation platform delivering personalized next-gen solutions for advisors, wealth managers, and […]
10.31.2023
Year End Planning: Changes for 2023 and Beyond
There are only a few weeks left in 2023, but there’s still plenty of time to make some smart moves before the end of the year. Many of the planning tips we shared last year are valid for 2023, as well, but there also are some new updates this year related to SECURE Act 2.0. […]
10.10.2023
October Declared Financial Planning Month in Georgia
The State of Georgia recently declared October 2023 as “Financial Planning Month.” This move underscores the critical importance of financial planning in achieving financial stability and success for individuals and families across Georgia. “Financial planning is a systematic process that involves setting clear financial goals, creating a roadmap to achieve them, and making informed decisions […]
09.27.2023
Has Modern Monetary Theory Failed?
Economics is not generally considered one of the “hard” sciences, like physics; assumptions are almost always oversimplified, and theories are difficult to test because you can’t run multiple controlled experiments with identical starting conditions. You also can’t avoid the human element, and if you study economics long enough, you’ll find significant overlap with psychology and […]
08.21.2023
Cash or Bonds?
As unique asset classes, cash and bonds have some similarities but occupy different spaces within your portfolio. While bonds historically have provided higher returns than cash, today’s interest rate structure is unusual and may impact the conventional wisdom with regard to the optimal balance between cash and bonds in a portfolio. How should investors approach […]
07.20.2023
Will Stock Returns Always be this High?
US stock market performance was exceptionally strong in the last decade. For the ten-year period ending June 30, 2023, the S&P 500 index returned 235% which is almost 12.9% per year. This is well beyond the long run average annual return of about 10% since 1926 and much higher than the 5.1% annual returns in […]
05.30.2023
Are You Maximizing Your HSA?
When it comes to confusing lexicons, the finance industry must be one of the worst offenders. As one example, just consider the types of investment accounts available to savers: there are IRAs, Roth IRAs, 401(k)s, 403(b)s, 457s, 529s, TOD INDs, SEPs, SIMPLEs, UTMAs… and there are many more. Fortunately, nearly all of these accounts can […]
05.03.2023
De-dollarization and Your Portfolio
If you follow the financial media closely (not recommended!), you’ve probably heard at least one pundit declare that the United States is about to lose its “reserve currency” status at any moment. And once it’s gone, the warning continues, a long parade of horribles will soon follow. Taken to an extreme, the endgame is the […]
04.03.2023
Lingering Pandemic Distortions
If financial markets feel a bit more unsettled to you than usual these days, you’re not wrong. Volatility is elevated in the stock market and unusually high in the bond market. Uncertainty is normal, of course, when it comes to investing, but it does seem that investors have a lot on their plates to digest […]
03.06.2023
Keep Your Eyes on the Prize
At Elevate, we know that investments are one of the core components of a well-designed, comprehensive financial plan. Investments play a crucial role; there to protect and grow your wealth, as well as to effectively transfer resources across time to fund future financial goals. Given that everyone aims for a successful investment experience, how should […]
01.30.2023
SECURE Act 2.0: Something for Everyone
In the final week of 2022, Congress passed a large omnibus spending package which included a multitude of changes affecting tax and retirement planning. Dubbed “SECURE Act 2.0,” the new bill revises and updates many of the items in the original SECURE Act of 2019, but also introduces several new measures that will impact employers, […]
01.25.2023
Our Team’s Favorite Finance Books
What do pundits on the news, analysts on the web, and physics around the corner all have in common? Simple! They all think they understand the market and hold the keys to financial success, or better yet, have just the book to recommend for you to find out for yourself. With thousands of finance books […]
01.09.2023
This is Not a Prediction
At the beginning of every new year, market forecasts about the year to come start arriving from all corners of the internet. This in itself is unsurprising; a large number of market professionals are in the “prediction business” and are paid to make forecasts about future market prices and the economy. This year is no […]
11.08.2022
The Hidden Bull Market of 2022
It’s not easy to find a bull market in much of anything this year. 2022 has been an unusually challenging year for nearly all asset classes, including stocks, bonds, and real estate. Poor bond market performance stands out in particular – a result of high inflation and sharply rising interest rates that led to equity-like […]
