Cash Balance Plans

By Debra Taylor, CPA/PFS, JD, CDFA™ Dear Friends, For investors, it may feel like déjà vu all over again as inflation and the Fed dominate market headlines on a day-to-day basis. After all, the numerous market swings last year were driven by ever-changing expectations around the Fed – …

By Debra Taylor, CPA/PFS, JD, CDFA™ Dear Friends, If history tells us anything about investing, it’s that markets never rise in a straight line. As much as all investors would prefer calm periods of steady returns, this simply isn’t how markets work. Instead, investors need to n …

By Debra Taylor, CPA/PFS, JD, CDFA™ Dear Friends, The first month of 2023 is now behind us and it felt very different than 2022. In 2022, the S&P 500 and the Bloomberg U.S. Aggregate Bond Index (“Agg”) both fell, and there was much talk of the demise of the “60/40” portfolio (a portfoli …

By Debra Taylor, CPA/PFS, JD, CDFA™   Dear Friends, We often discuss how women’s wealth is growing fast and that we are seeing more and more women in our practice with “a seat at the table.” But, the facts are coming in to support these anecdotal observations. Indeed, according to a r …

By Debra Taylor, CPA/PFS, JD, CDFA™ Dear Friends, Now that we are able to close the books on 2022, January is a great time to review major processes and to create a plan for the new year. No question that 2022 was a challenging one for all of us. So here are the “Five must …

By Debra Taylor, CPA/PFS, JD, CDFA™   Dear Friends, Whether you reached your personal goals last year or faced challenges, a New Year brings new opportunities and a fresh start. The Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement Act of 2019, popularly known as the SECURE Act, was sig …

By Debra Taylor, CPA/PFS, JD, CDFA™ Dear Friends, SECURE Act 2.0, passed at the end of December, has been described as legislation that is designed to help the hard-working people of America to get their retirement savings back on track. Although it is unclear whether SECURE Act 2.0 will me …

By Debra Taylor, CPA/PFS, JD, CDFA™ Let’s take a brief backward glance at the S&P 500. The S&P 500’s performance in 2022 was its seventh worst since inception and the third worst since 2000. Looking forward, episodic volatlity, muted earnings growth, and a high cost of capital …

By Debra Taylor, CPA/PFS, JD, CDFA™    Dear Friends, As bad as 2022 has been, there is a silver lining: back-to-back declines in the S&P 500 are rarer than you may think. If you go all the way back to 1950, the only times that stocks fell in back-to-back years were during the vicio …

By Debra Taylor, CPA/PFS, JD, CDFA™    Dear Friends, Although we would like to forget, the S&P 500 and Index posted a double-digit decline in 2022; and history shows that is an important fact when considering how the Index may do in 2023. First, the S&P Index has only been down …