WrapManager's Wealth Management Blog

An investment plan is a tool you can use to help you understand where you stand in retirement at every step of the way. Are you still on track to reach your retirement goals? How likely is it you be able to maintain your current lifestyle throughout retirement? Can you afford your current and potential healthcare costs? How much will you be able to leave behind for your loved ones? A well-constructed investment plan can give you a good sense of the answers to these questions. Instead of figuring it out as you go, you can examine a variety of outcomes to help you make more informed choices. Factoring Spending Goals into Investment Plans Before you can use an investment plan to help monitor your spending in retirement, it’s important to provide detailed answers to some fairly basic questions: what are your income needs/desired income in retirement? How might those needs change over time? [+] Read More

Many investors are increasingly seeking out alternative income sources such as dividends. Perhaps recognizing this, Charles Schwab strategically acquired dividend money manager ThomasPartners and their Dividend-Driven Income strategy to provide this investment option to their clients. [+] Read More

As we enter the New Year, many folks will set out to focus more attention on their health and wellbeing. Indeed, the month of January experiences almost 50% more gym membership sign ups than other months. According to the International Health, Racquet, and Sportsclub Association, “more than 12 percent of gym members join in January, compared to an average of 8.3 percent per month for the full year.”1 While improving your personal health is a wonderful goal, we are encouraging investors to put more time and energy into strengthening their financial health. Taking a fresh look at your investment plan—or creating one for the first time—is a great way to get started. Four Steps to Strengthen the Health of Your Investment Plan Taken together, the below four steps can help put you on a better path to knowing where you stand financially, relative to your long-term goals. Try you to review these four things in detail with your financial advisor. If you don’t have one, it could be a good opportunity for you to seek one out, using this process as a means to evaluate the type of job a financial advisor could do for you. [+] Read More

Tax season is gearing up and there are various deadlines depending on your tax situation. The below report lists out important dates throughout 2014. It also contains useful 2014 tax planning tables and information for several items, including: Income tax rate schedules, alternative minimum tax (AMT), capital gains, losses, and dividends, education planning, retirement accounts, Social Security benefits, Medicare tax rates, health and long-term care, federal trust and estate income tax, estate, gift, and generation-skipping transfer tax, corporate income tax and municipal bond taxable-equivalent yields. Download the Full Report Here [+] Read More

The short answer is no, according to a recent study conducted by the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. Data in the study suggests that the gap between what people have saved, versus what they need for retirement, is quite significant and by any measure staggering. The funding gap is $6.6 trillion.1 The study examines several reasons why many investors are underfunding their retirement, but three factors stand out as particularly influential. When reviewing these findings below, it’s important for investors to weigh them respective to their own savings and investment plans, including how much retirement income they’ll need, in order to help determine how prepared they are for retirement. Three Reasons Why Nest Eggs Aren’t Big Enough 1) Investors Aren’t Saving Enough Some investors haven’t saved enough simply because they never determined how much they actually needed for retirement. This involves speaking with a financial advisor about what your retirement income needs are, and then determining an appropriate savings level and a desired return on investments over time needed to get there. [+] Read More

For retired people or those nearing retirement, there can be less opportunity to “save more” as part of retirement planning. After all, retirement is supposed to be about working less, not more! Since working less usually means earning less and therefore saving less, it’s important to focus on good investment planning. Here are three planning ideas to consider when planning for retirement. 1) Consider a Strategy to Increase Your Social Security Check In previous blog posts, we’ve written about strategic ways to defer Social Security so as to enhance the size of your benefit checks. Two such strategies are the Restricted Application for Spousal Benefits and the File and Suspend Strategy. Click on the links to learn more. [+] Read More

Money manager Windhaven Investment Management has ranked consistently in our Monthly Top Ten Most Researched Money Managers for some time. Many investors request information about Windhaven because they are attracted to Windhaven’s stated potential ability to capture returns in up-markets, while also seeking to limit losses during market downturns. Below are some insights to help investors who are evaluating Windhaven’s investment strategies. (This is for informational and comparison purposes only. WrapManager is not affiliated with Windhaven Investment Management, and it has not approved for use nor entered into contracts with them.) Windhaven Investment Management Investment Strategies Windhaven Investment Management is a Registered Investment Advisor firm based out of Boston, MA, with over $15 billion in assets under management.1 In November 2010, Charles Schwab acquired Windhaven in an effort to broaden their investment offerings to their clients.2 Windhaven’s investment strategies include Diversified Conservative, Diversified Growth, and Diversified Aggressive, of which Diversified Growth is the most popular.3 [+] Read More

Money manager ClearBridge Investments' December commentary explains their view that many things remain out of balance in today's economy and are therefore unsustainable. Over time, many of these things should adapt to a more sustainable state. "More than five years after the global financial crisis, investors continue to grapple with volatile capital markets, political and social instability in many key regions of the globe, and lackluster economic growth. Interwoven with these challenges are numerous unsustainable conditions that have kept the global economy from achieving full recovery. From our semi-optimistic perspective, the environment is improving, the result of market forces that are attempting to reconnect society and the global economy, while replacing artificial distortions with real, sustainable economic factors." Download ClearBridge Investments' Full Commentary Here Get Free Research Reports on ClearBridge Investments [+] Read More

As we approach the New Year, it’s a good time to take a closer look at the more impactful themes and stories we think investors should consider when preparing their 2014 investment strategies. Here are five that we believe could impact the market and investor portfolios moving forward. Be sure to discuss these with your Financial Advisor to see if your investment portfolio is prepared. 1) How the Janet Yellen Federal Reserve Could Affect Your Portfolio If Janet Yellen gains Senate approval in the coming days to become the next Federal Reserve (Fed) Chair, she’ll take over on February 1.1 Investors are almost certain to watch her closely from day 1, searching for any kinds of policy-setting signals she might give. We believe the key factors to watch are how and when she intends to pare back the quantitative easing programs, better known as QE. Based on Yellen’s testimony before the Senate Banking Committee, her letters to lawmakers, and her track record, she appears in favor of continuing stimulus measures. This could mean an extension of the current quantitative easing programs with the Fed also holding their benchmark interest rate close to zero throughout all of 2014, which could be a positive for the economy and for portfolios.1 On the other hand, if market participants believe the Fed to be paring back those programs prematurely, it could be a negative event for the markets. Investors should speak with their financial advisor to find out if their portfolios are positioned with these monetary policy outcomes in mind. [+] Read More