In the early days, investing was largely the domain of “caveat emptor,” or “buyer beware.” Before the 1930s, there was essentially no regulation of investments and securities. At the time, one judge observed that people were “Selling things no more material than the blue sky.” This led to significant regulation in the 30s and 40s to create laws around the …
Jason Zweig is arguably one of the most effective watchdogs of the financial advice industry. With a 30 year career in following the finance industry, he’s contributed to some of the hardest hitting journalism, uncovering issues with misconduct both among advisors, associations, and regulators. Five years ago, Zweig published his list, “19 Questions to Ask Your Financial Advisor” in the …
Hello folks! The IRS has released its indexed updates to tax rates for 2023. On average, rates have increased by approximately 7%, although there’s a lot of “rounding” in how the IRS establishes the exact brackets and rates. Details below! Standard Deduction The standard deduction is increasing by $900 and $1,800, respectively, between single and married filers. This means the …
Imagine for a moment that you’re walking into a car dealership. You don’t need a new car per se, but your current car is starting to show its age, and you’re thinking about replacing it now while you’re ready for it and not waiting until it’s been driven into the ground. A car salesman approaches you and, with a smile, …
Recently, a well-known financial advisor took to Linkedin to share a bold opinion: “Advisors who make more money than you are some combination of smarter and/or harder working. End of story.” On its face, one can see the argument for it. Surely if you’re a financial professional whose job is to help their clients optimize their finances, surely you should …
Along with the Colorado Statewide Ballots, we get localized ballots in Colorado for our county and municipality. We’ve written about the Colorado Statewide ballots already, and for those readers not living in the Boulder County area, you can probably just read the statewide ballot article or otherwise take a pass on this week’s blog. We’ve divided it into countywide and …
For our regular readers, you’ll notice that this came out much later in the day than usual. To get you up to speed, I’ve been at XY Planning Network’s “XYPN Live” conference, where we spend time on continuing education, community building, and updating ourselves on technology and other solutions. The conference was let out this afternoon, and in a change …
It’s not uncommon for us to hear about being underemployed; the popular “college graduate working at Starbucks” sort of observation is often raised as a criticism of higher education and the low return on investment from many majors. Yet, there is an inverse term that we’re talking about today: overemployed. This term shares a resemblance to the expression “working two …
We’re almost nine full months into what we could all easily describe as a disappointing investment year. While the fourth quarter could show signs of recovery and positive momentum, it seems fairly clear that this year the market’s esprit de corps lives and dies by the Federal Reserve’s perspective on interest rates and inflation. The Federal Reserve has been plain …
We received our 2022 Statewide ballot information packet in the mail yesterday. Not one to let an opportunity to read exciting political descriptions of things like mill levies and income taxes pass us by, we’ve decided to pass comments on the financial impact of each ballot measure. Whether you support the underlying issues and causes is a separate question, but …