Finding the right financial advisor can be challenging. Just about anyone can call themselves a financial advisor, since there is no regulation of the title and no standard that has to be met in order to use it. This means that your search can leave you sifting through a confusing mess of service models, fee structures, credentials, and unclear motivations. Luckily, there are criteria you can use to cut through most of the noise and increase your odds of finding a financial advisor who has the expertise to help you […]

There is plenty of buzz out there about passive income. I hear it from clients. I hear it from friends. I see blog posts and social media posts and even major news outlets enchanted by the idea of passive income. It’s easy to understand why. Investopedia defines passive income as “money being earned regularly with little or no effort on the part of the person receiving it”. Who wouldn’t want that? Money coming in without having to do anything sounds good to me too. Most of the time, when the

I’m often asked about the benefits of tax loss harvesting and how this strategy can be used advantageously. In some circumstances it makes sense, however, I think this strategy is oversold. Let’s define these terms and take a deeper look. Tax Loss Harvesting Tax Loss Harvesting is a practice that can be executed throughout the year that involves selling poorly performing investments within your taxable accounts to generate capital losses and reduce your taxes. Those proceeds would then be reinvested back into the market. The tax rules currently allow you

I am being inundated with new headlines about market declines and volatility. The last time I wrote about this topic was in 2016. Since that time, the S&P has increased by almost 50% even factoring in the bear market losses we have seen this year.  During the last six years, we have experienced declines of greater than 10% four times (in December 2018, March 2020, February 2022 & June 2022). Each time we experience a market downturn, it feels unprecedented. However, historically, market downturns have happened with surprising frequency. Not