Financial Planning & Strategy
How to avoid gift taxes
How to avoid gift taxes We have received several inquiries this year from clients who want to make a financial gift to a family member but were concerned about gift taxes. For most U.S. citizens, even if the gift is large, the answer to the question, “How much is the gift tax?” can be “not…
Read MoreAssessing the “Trump Bump” – What to Do Now
Assessing the “Trump Bump” – What to Do Now Recently, several clients have called to ask something like, “The markets have run up a lot. Should we have more in stocks?” Since the election, stocks have had a nice run. The typical explanation for this is that President Trump campaigned on change and the market…
Read MoreHow do currency fluctuations affect investments?
How do currency fluctuations affect investments? Politicians have been promising to make America stronger long before Donald Trump was born. Sometimes these calls for strength are applied to our currency in the form of strong dollar policies. “Strong” sounds better than “weak.” Yet, President Trump has been vocal about his distaste for the Chinese efforts…
Read MoreWhat are you telling nervous clients to do now?
With the world’s stock markets having a rough start to 2016, the most common question of late from business and personal finance reporters has been, “What are you telling nervous clients to do now?” Making News… We produce regular Q&A columns for Florida Today and MarketWatch, a personal finance website of the Wall Street Journal, as well as…
Read MoreWhy stay in one fund when another is performing better?
For the last few months, the dominant story in the financial media was predicting when the Federal Reserve would raise its target interest rates. On December 16th, it finally happened and the Fed announced a ¼% increase. Over the last several years, an increase in rates has largely been presented as some evil specter…
Read MoreWhy rebalancing can help when markets decline
Markets are quick to react to change and current events causing them to rise and fall frequently and sometimes substantially. This summer’s double digit decline in U.S. stocks is just the latest example. Such swift declines can add to a sense of chaos and make investors uneasy. As chaotic as markets can be, if we…
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