WrapManager's Wealth Management Blog

Despite Roadblocks, Expect the Bull Market to Continue... Following a down week for stocks, investors adopted a risk-on approach, moving back into equities. While the damage from Hurricane Irma was devastating in terms of human costs, the economic impact was less severe than feared. The S&P 500 Index rose 1.6% last week and all major U.S. indices reached new highs. As part of the broader outperformance trend among risk assets, Treasuries were weaker across the yield curve last week, the dollar rose slightly, gold prices fell and oil moved higher. Read an excerpt of the complete commentary below, or download the complete commentary as a PDF. [+] Read More

When it comes to investment planning and setting up plans for life in retirement, it would be wonderful if we could just focus on growth, investment, spending, and financial security for you and your family. Those are the exciting features of planning that – while not always easy to work through – are challenges that are rewarding to solve. But proper investment planning should also include addressing issues that are often difficult for families to discuss. One of those issues is cognitive decline. According to State Street Global Advisors, only about 39% of investors believe they have a suitable plan if their decision-making ability becomes diminished. That number may be low because of the following statistic: while 85% of advisors report encouraging their clients to have a plan in case of cognitive decline, only 41% of investors think they actually need one. [+] Read More

We see more political uncertainty ahead... Washington averted an imminent fiscal crisis, but the result could be a steep fiscal cliff in December or early 2018. We see heightened political uncertainty toward year-end as the U.S. Congress must revisit lifting the federal borrowing limit and funding the government. We could see this delaying and reducing the scope of any tax reform. Read an excerpt of Richard Turnill's weekly commentary below, or view the entire weekly investment commentary here. [+] Read More

The conventional wisdom is that once a person retires, they should pare back exposure to stocks and focus instead on a more balanced, conservative approach. Perhaps the most-used description for this type of retirement strategy is “capital preservation.” But what if, somewhat contrary to intuition, capital preservation actually meant that investors needed to maintain a significant allocation to stocks? This is where retirees may have the tendency to mix-up their investment needs vs. wants. Retirees tend to want steady, conservative returns, which makes the argument for allocating more to bonds and cash. But what retirees may actually need is long-term growth to account for cash flow needs and rising expenses over time, which makes the case for allocating more to growth assets, like stocks. [+] Read More

Over the past few days we’ve had many clients mention their concerns about the Equifax data breach, which got us talking about how to protect your credit if it’s possible your personal information is at risk. And, as the number of impacted Americans continues to grow, it’s worth knowing what options you have to protect yourself from fraud. Equifax built a Cybersecurity Incident website for you to see if your personal information has been impacted - check to see if your security was impacted here. While some people are considering Equifax’s own credit monitoring service, another option that you have is to freeze your credit across all three major reporting agencies. But what does that mean, and how do you do it? A Quick Explanation Freezing your credit basically places restrictions on who can view your credit report. Once your credit is frozen only yourself, existing lenders, or their debt collectors will be able to see it, according to federal regulators. (Government agencies carrying out a search warrant or subpoena are still able to access your credit records as well.) [+] Read More

We advocate sticking with a pro-growth investment stance... The devastation caused by Hurricane Harvey dominated the news last week. From an economic perspective, damage to the region’s energy infrastructure is likely to cause local disruptions and contribute to a temporary increase in gasoline prices. But we expect the broader economic and market effect to be limited. Equity prices rose for a second straight week, with the S&P 500 Index up 1.4%. Health care, technology and industrials led the way, while financials and bond proxies such as telecommunications and utilities fared the worst. Read an excerpt of the complete commentary below, or download the complete commentary as a PDF. [+] Read More

Part of being an astute investor involves hours of analyzing the capital markets, actively researching the companies and strategies you invest in, and staying up to speed on current events. That’s plenty of work on its own. But there is another aspect to smart investing that generally receives less attention but is arguably equally important. It involves studying ourselves – our behaviors and tendencies as investors, how and why we make investment decisions, and how those decisions may impact our returns over time. Most of this research falls within the field of Behavioral Finance, which challenges the assumption that “individuals act rationally and consider all available information in the decision-making process.”1 Investors rarely do those things, and that’s why studying behavioral finance can be so beneficial. The general thinking is that the more we understand the decision-making process, the better equipped we can be to help investors avoid common mistakes while simultaneously establishing guidelines for a disciplined investment process. [+] Read More

With all the hoopla about health care over the last several months, you may have heard the term “Health Savings Account” tossed around here and there. In short, Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) are tax-exempt accounts available for people in certain high-deductible health plans. Since people with high deductible health plans by definition incur significant out-of-pocket expenses before the insurance kicks-in, HSAs allow them to plan ahead by socking away money in a tax advantaged way.2 Think of it as having a savings account for your medical needs. As we will cover below, however, HSAs are not for everyone, and there are other features you should understand if you’re exploring them as part of your plan. Here are five of those features: [+] Read More

Escalating Political Uncertainty Drags on Stocks As last week began, attention was focused on attempts to dial back tensions between the United States and North Korea. As the week progressed, investor focus turned to the backlash over President Trump’s comments in the wake of the violence in Charlottesville. Despite good economic and earnings news, the negatives won out and stock prices fell for a second week, with the S&P 500 Index dropping -0.6%. Global financial markets are enduring a bumpy phase, largely due to rising geopolitical tensions and domestic political uncertainty. While the damage to equity markets and other risk assets has so far been minor, investors are focusing on potential downside risks that could trigger additional damage. Read an excerpt of the complete commentary below, or download the entire investment commentary as a PDF. [+] Read More