I am not a fan of basketball, but one story this year caught my attention. The Philadelphia 76ers, who were far and away the worst team in the National Basketball Association over the past few seasons, surprised many fans and basketball insiders alike when they won 52 games en route to the number 3 seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs. For the 76ers players and fans, the mantra “trust the process” served as a rallying cry for the team throughout the season and into the playoffs.
Nobody likes paying taxes. Even though taxes are necessary to keep our schools open, communities safe, roads clean, and governments running, it’s not a fulfilling experience to see a percentage of your hard-earned income or investment gains vanish into thin air. With that being said, there’s no way of escaping taxes (without risking legal repercussions, of course), but that doesn’t mean there aren’t things we can do throughout the year to reduce the amount of taxes you ultimately end up paying.
Author Nancy Hatch Woodward once wrote, “Snow brings a special quality with it – the power to stop life as you know it dead in its tracks.” Anyone who lives in the Northeast knows this all too well.
On Thursday, November 15, 2018, the New Jersey/New York area was hit with one of the more notable November snowstorms in history. Parts of Northern New Jersey and New York City received upward of six inches of snow, with some areas getting hit with as much as ten inches.
The story of the millionaire next door has been told at nauseum. Since authors Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko first released their book “The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America’s Wealthy” in 1996, the book’s themes have been used as an attempt to promote good savings habits.
In closing 2018, the S&P 500 posted its worst December since 1931, during the Great Depression, and its worst quarter since 2008, during the Great Recession. The good news is we didn’t have to wait long for the bounce back. To start 2019, the S&P 500 posted its best January since 1987. As of Friday’s market close, the S&P 500 is 5.0% below its high on September 21, 2018, but is 19.0% above its low on December 26, 2018.
A retirement calculator is a great tool for most investors. It lets you input a number of variables such as current age, planned retirement age, annual salary, annual savings, current retirement savings balance, and expected annual return and the calculator computes your estimated accumulated retirement account balance at retirement. Some calculators will even translate that lump-sum balance into an annual withdrawal amount. This is a straight-forward way to see if you are on track to meet your retirement goals and compare what you have with what you will need. If you don’t like your results, you can play with the inputs to determine what changes you should make.
Over the past few weeks most of our posts have focused on putting the recent stock market volatility in perspective and subduing concerns about the strength of the U.S. economy.
One of the important points we have stressed is the importance of remaining disciplined to your investment strategy because capital markets have rewarded long-term investors. One of the graphics we often show to illustrate this point is the chart included below. This chart shows the growth of $1 from January 1, 1926 through December 31, 2018 had you invested in US small cap stocks, US large cap stocks, long term corporate bonds, long term government bonds, and cash.
The National Football League (NFL) season reached its conclusion yesterday when the New England Patriots defeated the Los Angeles Rams 13-3 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia to win the Super Bowl. While New England Patriots Fans are busy celebrating their sixth Super Bowl win in the past eighteen years and Los Angeles Rams fans are licking their wounds, some investors are looking to the final score to get a sense of how the stock market is likely to perform for the rest of the year.
How often in the past month have you received a credit card offer with a large sign-up bonus and lofty on-going rewards? Sign-up bonuses can be a flat dollar amount, say $500, or a promise to match any cash back rewards you may earn within the first 3 months. On-going rewards can be cash, points, or travel perks. No matter your need there is sure to be a credit card issuer out there trying to entice you to sign up for their card. Some people accept the sign-up bonus and on-going rewards and don’t think twice about it. Others, though, see these offers and wonder, “What’s the catch?”
Over the past few months, market participants have focused on the yield curve and its history of predicting an economic recession. As the chart below shows, the yield curve has inverted prior to every recession dating back to 1962. With predictive power like this, it’s no wonder investors have been vigilantly monitoring its movement in an attempt to gauge when a recession may occur.
At HIGHLAND, we continue to support the efforts by our staff to develop personally and professionally. We have a commitment to providing excellent service and guidance to clients. Each member of our team has an intellectual curiosity and belief that what they do really matters to our clients’ lives. With this in mind, we have some exciting news to share about the HIGHLAND team.
It’s a new year and I can’t think of a better time to highlight cost of living adjustments affecting dollar limitations for retirement-related items and social security benefits for 2019.
The contribution limit for employees who participate in 401(k), 403(b), most 457 plans, and the Federal government’s Thrift Savings Plan increased from $18,500 to $19,000. The catch-up contribution limit for employees aged 50 and over who participate in 401(k), 403(b), most 457 plans, and the Federal government’s Thrift Savings Plan remains unchanged at $6,000.
What a difference a year makes. This time last year we were highlighting a picture-perfect year for global stocks. In 2017, both the S&P 500 and the MSCI All Country World Index ex USA were positive for all twelve calendar months. This was the first time either index accomplished this feat and it happened with near-record low volatility while enduring geopolitical tensions, political dysfunction, massive natural disasters, and tighter monetary policy. 2017 was defined by synchronized global expansion whereby most global economies were getting stronger, with the United States leading the charge.
From its close on September 20th to its close on December 24th, the S&P 500 Index declined 19.8%, including a greater than 7% one-week (December 14-21) fall that had not been seen since the Global Financial Crisis of 2008-09. The generally accepted technical definition of a bear market is a decline of 20% or more. While the S&P 500 barely avoided the official bear market designation, it sure felt like one.
In the 1950s psychologist Solomon Asch conducted a series of experiments to investigate the extent to which social pressure from a majority group could affect a person to conform. Asch’s experiments were simple vision tests. A group of eight male college students were placed in a room, shown a card with a line segment on it, and then shown another card with three line segments labelled A, B, and C. One of the line segments on the second card was the same length as the line segment on the first card, while the other two line segments were clearly of a different length. Participants were asked to write down their answers and then give their answers aloud. Seems like a pretty straight forward experiment, but there was a twist.
Over the past 80 days, the US stock market has declined about 11%, and over the last 365 days, it is down about 1%. Foreign stock markets have declined about 9% over the last 80 days and are down about 10% for the last 365 days as well. The US bond market, typically a good hedge to the risk of stocks, hasn’t delivered much protection during the same time periods, being up about 1% in the last 80 days and down about 1% for the last 365 days.
Prior to the passing of the Tax Cut and Jobs Act (TCJA) in December of 2017 you likely enjoyed the tax deduction that came with your charitable contributions – no matter the size of the donation. If you lived in a state where you paid state income taxes and had high property taxes you were probably itemizing your deductions (See NJ, NY, CT, and MA – just to name a few).
Earlier this month I had the opportunity to attend the 29th annual SRI Conference in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The SRI Conference is the premier annual gathering of sustainable, responsible, and impact investment professionals working to direct the flow of investment capital toward a truly sustainable future.
