Posts by Thad Gilliam, CFA, CFP®
20 Second Advisor: Gift stock at year end to save TWICE on taxes.
As we get into the holiday season, in addition to celebrating and gathering with family, it’s also a great time to reflect on all we’ve been given. Hopefully, you’ll see the abundance in our lives (namely, our clients have food, shelter, clothing, and enjoy relative peace in our country). If you decide to share some…
Read More20 Second Advisor: “Mind the Gap” study shows investors underperform. How can you close the gap?
Morningstar publishes an annual “Mind the Gap” study to show the difference between the returns delivered by all funds and ETFs versus the returns actually realized to investors’ accounts. So, for the 10 years ending Dec. 31, 2022, all funds put together (large cap funds, small cap funds, international funds, etc.) had an average return…
Read More20 Second Advisor: Create Your Schwab Login This Month!
We are about a month away from the TD Ameritrade/Schwab merger. For clients with accounts at TD Ameritrade, you can go ahead and confirm/create your Schwab Alliance login credentials. By doing this now, you’ll automatically have access to your Schwab accounts on Day 1 of the transition. To setup your Schwab login follow the below…
Read More20 Second Advisor: Key Driver For Retirement Happiness? An 85 year Harvard study provides a possible answer.
The Answer: Connections. A Harvard study followed some 724 people over their lifetimes to answer the question: What makes us happy? As the study’s participants entered their retirement years, more and more of them communicated the difficulty of forming new and meaningful relationships outside of work. To maximize your happiness in retirement, I believe you…
Read More20 Second Advisor: Debt Ceiling History
The debt ceiling traces its roots to 1902. The US government wanted to build the Panama Canal and needed to ask Congress for authorization to borrow specifically for that project. During World War I, requesting such authorization on a project-by-project basis became too cumbersome to fund the war effort. To ease that burden, Congress passed…
Read More20 Second Advisor: Should I just put my money in bank CDs?
I’ve been getting a lot questions from clients on if they should keep their funds in their portfolio or just take it out and put the funds into a bank CD (now paying 4-5%). To me, the question is all about time horizon. Stocks have a much higher expected return (around 10% over the long…
Read More20 Second Advisor: Bank Troubles & Your Portfolio
Many of you have seen the headlines this week about Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse and that some other banks (namely First Republic and Credit Suisse) are in trouble. I thought it would be helpful to give you a brief overview of why SVB failed and if it has an impact on your portfolio. Without further…
Read More20 Second Advisor: Age before beauty – how older investors can outperform higher return investments (hint: it’s time!).
I’m reading a book right now that talks about Warren Buffett. Some say he is a great investor. Others say that perhaps he has just been extremely lucky. Or perhaps he is just an old investor (he’s been investing for a long time!). I think Buffett has a good bit of all three: Investment skill,…
Read More20 Second Advisor: SMART goals = intentional life
It’s that time of year when we clean out the junk in our house, take stock of where we are, and maybe make a few goals and plans for the coming year! I love to plan, but I’ve learned that nothing happens by accident. The best way to move incrementally toward the life you envision…
Read More20 Second Advisor: Secret to staying wealthy? Fear.
I just finished reading a fascinating excerpt from the book “The Psychology of Money.” In the article, the author, Morgan Housel, lays out the argument that the skills needed to gain vast sums of money are very different than the skills needed to retain and protect wealth. Specifically, Housel says: Capitalism is hard. But part…
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