Good Financial Reads: Making Smart Investments

We’ve talked about buying quality holdings to hold for the long-term. Especially during a market like we are currently seeing with the war of words and talk of tariffs on additional products. We discussed the importance of buying quality stocks in our post about financial shortcuts last week.  The question then is what is a good stock?  But, a good company doesn’t necessarily mean the stock of that company is good too.

As you continue to invest you may find it natural to invest in the stock of those companies you buy products from.  But let’s consider popular companies that haven’t always been quality investments over the years.

You've decided that you want a good asset allocation that balances risk tolerance and risk capacity. You want an optimal implementation, perhaps one with multi-factor tilts. And you want ongoing opportunistic rebalancing, tax-loss harvesting, and tax-efficient asset location. Who wouldn't? It's money in your pocket, compounding over time, that you're otherwise lighting on fire. 

So...how? Do you do it yourself? Do you hire someone else? What are your options? Turns out that there are several, so let's go into each of them in turn.

You get it: you need to invest wisely in order to grow your wealth.

You understand the importance of getting your money into the market, and you’ve been diligently contributing to retirement accounts and maybe even a brokerage account for years now.

But you can’t help but wonder… are you investing in the best possible way? Are you potentially missing out on a better investment someone else is using that you don’t know about?

It was just another ordinary travel day for Jennifer Riordan.

For the 43-year-old bank executive and mother of two, April 17, 2018 was a travel day just like any other. Just as she had countless times before, Jennifer kissed her kids goodbye and headed to the airport, then boarded Southwest flight 1380 bound for Philadelphia. She settled comfortably into seat 14A; a window seat. The days of pre-flight anxiety were a thing of the past for Jennifer – her travel requirements had increased as her career advanced, and by this point in her career she was an experienced business traveler. She had taken hundreds of flights in her life, all without incident. But that day was different. On April 17th, 2018, Jennifer Riordan boarded her plane, and she never came home.

Drink, breathe, eat – We all do it.

Water, air, food – We all need it. 

I am a card-carrying environmentalist.  Green is my favorite color.  I like wandering in wild spaces.  I like encountering wild critters.  But, I am also a hypocrite.  I drive, I use single use plastics, I build fires where I am “not supposed to.”  I am human – lovely, complex, imperfect.  Even though I know that bike commuting costs me only 12 minutes and some sweat, while preventing 4 pounds of carbon dioxide from being released into the atmosphere, I still choose to drive half the time.  On Earth Day, I drove to work.  I am not proud.  The hard part about making a values-based choice though, is choosing your values.   

To begin, we want to address the somber news that lives are being affected by Coronavirus. Our thoughts go out to the people infected and their families. We also wish to thank the medical professionals who help during this outbreak.

As a financial planning firm, we hope to provide our thoughts on the recent market volatility. The rest of this article focuses on how to handle your investment portfolio — especially in these up-and-down markets.