Political issues shouldn’t play a large role in long-term strategy

How do we do that? The answer is: making sure our sons and daughters have been educated on key financial topics.

Based on Russell Investments 2017 study

 Couples may want to add charitable giving to their "must dos" this Valentine’s Day.

Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett praises indexing, and American dynamism in his 2016 letter to shareholders. 

When clients receive a large lump sum of cash, such as from a pension payout, bonus or asset sale, historical evidence suggests that the best decision is to invest the sum all at once according to an investor's asset allocation plan. Many investors nevertheless choose to put the money to work over time, hopefully using a systematic implementation. This research article from Vanguard explores the costs and benefits of both strategies to help guide what is a frequent decision faced by our clients.

The IRS has increased the federal estate tax exemption, which is indexed annually for inflation, to $5.49 million for 2017, up from $5.45 million in 2016. That lets couples now shield as much as $10.98 million from federal estate tax.

Bonds sink as investors bet on an improving economy and value priced stocks.

The article "Now is the time for an annual Medicare check-up" from Goodcare.com provides a valuable reminder to take advantage of the upcoming open enrollment period for Medicare. The temptation with all insurance is to “set it and forget it”.  With medical insurance, it is especially important to adjust your health insurance as your health evolves.  The upcoming enrollment period which opens on October 15 is a great opportunity to review your coverage.  Those of you who haven’t reached age 65 aren’t off the hook for this.  Many of your employers also have open enrollment periods approaching before the end of the year so a review of your coverage is also a good idea.  As always, please let us know how we can help.

Portfolio Insights: Index and Factor Investing

The Election and what it might Mean

In July, the stock market continued to rebound from the Brexit correction and experienced a rotation back toward large and medium capitalization growth stocks.

Stocks continue rebound from January funk, but bonds flat in May. Return expectations flat lining after post crisis run.

Savvy planners focus most of their time and attention on managing things they can know and control, and work hard to filter much of the noise associated with investing. At TWM we've developed the acronym “ADEPPTS” to help you focus on managing:

This is an unbiased comparison of the proposed tax plans for individuals released by Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. In many ways, their tax policy aligns broadly with the platform of their political party — Clinton wants high-income earners to pay a larger percentage of their income in taxes, while Trump wants to cut taxes for all income levels. 

Required reading. Forget the highlighter, the whole thing would be yellow.

Obviously the post truth political environment is troubling, but it affects how investment information is disseminated, which we've tried to make you aware of. How do we protect the integrity of our own thinking and ability to remain objective?

The stock market “climbed a wall of worry” in the second quarter, fending off concerns about Brexit and slowing growth patterns. During the quarter there was a sharp downtick within the general labor expansion, but recent evidence indicates that it was an aberration. Finally, the Fed signaled that it will be patient as far as interest rate policy.

Midsummer Night’s Market

The good old days, when politicians were civil and worked together, market risk was null, and stock market volatility was low