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The debt ceiling is making news again. Will Congress raise it? Will the U.S. make history by defaulting on our government debt?

If it seems like this a story you’ve heard before, that’s because it is. Over the past decade, there have been seven occasions where we’ve seen negotiations (or lack thereof) over the debt ceiling come uncomfortably close to Congress’s deadline to act.

May Market Commentary: The End of a Fed Cycle?

The biggest news in the Fed’s statement after their meeting on May 3 was what it didn’t say.

The Fed’s statement from March contained the language “the Committee anticipates that some additional policy firming may be appropriate” for the Fed to achieve its 2% inflation goal.”

Financial Capability Beyond April

April is Financial Capability Month, an initiative that started in 2004 as “Financial Literacy” and has evolved over the last 20 years.

April Market Commentary: All’s Well That Ends Well? Not So Fast…

March Recap and April Outlook
Equity markets, using the S&P 500 index return as a proxy, at first glance appear to have shrugged off the mid-month drama of multiple domestic, regional bank failures and the forced sale of a massive Swiss bank.

How Do You Create Lasting Wealth?

For most people, steady, ongoing work is the foundation of their wealth. Career success and a good salary, or building and growing your own business, is the means to a lifestyle you enjoy now and the promise of a stable financial future.

Women Investors Seek Goals, Not Just Gains

Women investors have unique strengths. Over the last few years, several studies have found that women investors outperform men significantly. The first of these, by the University of California at Berkeley, found that women outperformed by a full percentage point over a six-year period

CNET Money: The Fed's Ninth Straight Rate Hike Comes After Banking Chaos. Experts Unpack What's Next

InvestEdge Planning contributes to this article with CNET Money. Read the article here...

March Market Commentary: Why Aren’t Rate Hikes Working?

February Recap and March Outlook
If there’s an aphorism for February that you could embroider on a pillow, it would be, “The more things change, the more they remain the same.” Markets appear to have finally started taking Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s warnings seriously and caught up to the rhetoric that the Fed has been consistently pushing out. Rates will be higher for longer, yields went up, bond prices fell, and equity markets finally acknowledged that the pivot was nowhere in sight.

Setting Your Business Strategy for 2023: New Challenges, More Opportunities

With record-setting and inflation and a red-hot labor market that turned hiring to support your business into a competitive sport, last year seemed about ten years long. Will we see a return to normal this year? The Fed may have something to say about it. The messaging is clear that lower inflation is the priority, not the economy. The “soft landing” may be possible, but a recession seems more likely.

How can business owners plan for another year in which full recovery may still not be in place?

Break down the challenges
Identify strategies
Be realistic
Access the resources you need

February Market Commentary: Powell’s Not Done

January Recap and February Outlook

The market adage is “as January goes, so goes the year.” Is it true? According to an analysis by Fidelity, January returns are positive about 75% of the time the full year turns out positive.

The rally was certainly a relief after last year’s dismal performance, and while stocks and bonds are still positively correlated, the return to solid bond performance at least means the 60/40 has a chance of righting the ship.

But the data continues to be open to interpretation. Strong economic indicators like employment, a better-than-expected earnings season, and consumer spending don’t seem to match up to the very rapid change in GDP expectations.

Recession, Recovery, or Both?

The markets are starting to feel like Groundhog Day. Almost every month, it’s a cadence of employment numbers, CPI, Fed — market reacts.

With inflation starting to trend down, even if only slightly, optimism has been making a comeback. That means moving our analogy to another charming rodent. It seems like the Fed is playing whack-a-mole with coordinated statements designed to tamp down expectations for a rate cut anytime soon. The Fed wants to keep asset prices lower to aid in slowing the economy and help it get inflation under control.

Retirement is just as much a leap of faith as any other significant life change. No matter how much you prepare, you will only really understand all the implications when you start your new life. That’s one reason we believe that the first requirement of a good retirement plan is that it needs to be flexible enough to efficiently encompass changes in your life as you adjust to your new situation.

How do we get to maximum flexibility? It starts with avoiding retirement risks. The more your plan is set up to accommodate predictable events or situations, the greater your ability to adjust to the unpredictable.

Avoiding the Big Retirement Risks

January Market Commentary: The Fed Goes Meta

December Recap and January Outlook
While the equity markets, as measured by the S&P 500 index, was up in the third quarter, December was a disappointment from the gains seen in October and November. There’s no understating the volatility seen in the market this year. For context, Dow Jones Market Data indicates that the S&P saw more market moves of 2% (both up and down) in 2022 than in 2020. The 46 moves over the 2% threshold are approximately four times the 10-year average of 11.3.

Inflation is dropping, if slowly. Employment is lower, but strong, which is supportive of the economy, and GDP returned to positive. What’s causing the volatility? Many factors are in play, but arguably the largest is the Federal Reserve’s moves on interest rates, and the messaging from Chairman Powell and the Fed Governors.

The SECURE 2.0 Act Has Created Some Retirement Planning Opportunities

The SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022 makes it easier to accumulate retirement savings at every stage of the financial journey. But the Act also took steps to potentially enhance retirement savings for those close to or in retirement. Required minimum distributions (RMDs) can be burdensome from both an income and a tax planning perspective. The Act creates some breathing room by extending the age at which RMDs kick in and builds in some opportunities to prepare a multi-year plan to maximize income and minimize taxes.

SECURE 2.0 Act Enhancements Across the Retirement Continuum

It’s not the most imaginatively named legislation, but the SECURE 2.0 Act expands the 2019 SECURE Act to make it easier to have a successful retirement. The legislation tackled retirement savings at several points on the financial journey, with a provision to enhance or facilitate saving and investing for almost everyone.

Whether you have student loans, need to catch up in the final years before retirement, are facing taking required minimum distributions in retirement, or want to enact a charitable giving strategy, new rules create a smoother path.

Combining all the different facets into one piece of comprehensive retirement legislation is an efficient way to enact changes, but it’s also a good reminder that retirement is never a “one-and-done.”

Making the Retirement Leap in 2023

Planning for retirement is something you’ve probably been doing for a good part of your working life. You’ve saved, invested, and mapped out your post-retirement life and goals.

As you get to the point that retirement becomes a reality, there are a lot of choices to make that will have an impact for years to come. The process can be complex at the best of times. For people taking the leap in the next year, there’s an additional layer of worry.

Bear markets, high inflation, interest rates that keep going up, and now the potential for a recession. All of these can add risk to your decision-making.

December Market Commentary and November Recap

We’re on the home stretch of a year in which “unprecedented” doesn’t even begin to capture it. Nothing went according to plan, for anyone, from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to the Fed’s domestic attempts to combat inflation. Along the way, we saw spiking gas prices, tanking equity and bond markets, a continued red-hot labor market, a head-scratcher of a mid-term election, and a broad and deep meltdown of crypto.

401(k) Plans Aren’t Just for Retirement, But Starting Early Matters

Millennial and Gen Z employees know the value of an employer-sponsored retirement plan. A recent survey by Betterment found that 79% of Millennials and 84% of Gen Z would leave their current job for one with better financial benefits. But when it comes to contributing, the numbers go down a lot. A Bank of America study found that only about 55% of Gen Z and Millennial employees contribute, and 70% of Millennials contribute less than $5,000 annually.

Surveying the Alternatives Landscape

Investing can take many forms, and an investment plan often changes throughout your financial journey. But one of the core principles of building a portfolio remains, regardless of your investment strategy’s time horizon, risk profile, or goal.

Insights with Shannon: CPI rate report 11-13-22

Universal Life Insurance: A Primer

Life insurance has three main categories: term life, whole life (also referred to as permanent), and universal life. Each type is distinctive, with its own set of benefits and features. Choosing the best one depends on your individual needs and priorities and the best fit for your family, loved ones, and other beneficiaries.

Inflation Has Tax Impacts, Too

Inflation has been making every area of our lives more expensive as the costs of the goods and services we use every day have skyrocketed. The Federal Reserve is attempting to lower inflation by using the bluntest tool in its arsenal – raising the key short-term interest rate.

Social Security Benefits Are Increasing. How Will It Affect Your Taxes?

Inflation has been hitting everyone’s wallets all year long. With the cost of everything from fuel to pasta going up, a 40-year high in the cost-of-living-adjustment (COLA) for social security sounds like a good thing. But is that all there is to it?

November Market Commentary: Powell Threads the Needle?

November Outlook and October Recap

How Do You Create a Retirement “Paycheck?”

There’s one question we hear most often from those nearing retirement, is some variation on this:

“How do I get my money out of my retirement plan and into my checking account?”

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