Blog

Slide presentation created by The Sedoric Group in response to the current economic environment, global interest rates, and taxes.

Tom Sedoric and Casey Snyder sat down for a conversation on April 21 to discuss the current economic environment and provide their insights on the unusual economic events of 2020.

We are now weeks into an economic and social environment that few of us could have ever imagined at the beginning of 2020. In its history, this country has weathered numerous recessions and the Great Depression of the 20th Century, but we have never been forced to metaphorically put the economy into a coma due to the country’s gravest public health crisis in over a century. With each passing day, the political pressures are increasing to “reopen” the country to greater economic activity while..

The annual Stakeholder Report is sent to all clients to prove a look back at the previous year. The report also provides news about the practice and our team...

The Holiday Letters are firing up, our talented team is crafting our own greeting to each of you, and Thanksgiving provided us all with an immense sense of gratitude. Our client’s support during our migration to Steward Partners still brings a flood of emotion for us...

The Sedoric Group has never been more energized to help clients reach their desired destination in this environment. We are fiduciaries and everything we do is with our client’s goals and objectives in mind. It is because of you we continue to invest in the evolution of our team and the array of services we provide. We thank you in advance for taking the time to read our annual Stakeholder Report and promise that whatever 2018 has in store...

We thank you in advance for taking the time to read the following synopsis of 2018, some thoughts on the year ahead, our practice update, and a few tax season guidelines.

It’s hard to believe we’re already talking end-of-year and the holidays, but I guess that’s why they say time is our most precious resource. We write our year-end letter not to burden your inbox, but rather because year-end is a busy time of year for important reasons most people...

The Sedoric Group Outlook is sent to all our clients to provide them with a summary of important financial events and policy changes from the past year. This includes discussion of the themes we see developing in the years ahead and actionable items to consider. The 2020 Outlook provides our take on negative interest rates, an overview of the SECURE Act, and how to reframe risk.

Taxes are typically our greatest lifetime expense and we make every effort to mitigate their drag on our clients’ retirement portfolios. During our three decades of helping families in their quest for retirement security...

Historians will likely look back at this post-2009 period as one of coflation. A caveat is worthy here because if you haven’t heard of this, you aren’t alone. It is a new concept first mentioned in 2010, and expanded upon in our practice over the past 5 years. It helps us explain to clients what is happening today at both macro and micro levels...

Recently, I had the pleasure of an extended lunch with one of my all-time heroes, Paul Volcker, former Fed Chairman (1979-1987) and the first Chair of the Economic Recovery Advisory Board (2009-2011). I was curious to learn and discuss his opinion on many economic and political topics, but in particular how the Volcker Rule has played out as part of the larger Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation...

What does planning-dependent mean? First, it requires a sense of clarity about expectations, opportunities, risks, weaknesses and sequence. Whether it’s at the beginning phase of accumulating your first nest egg or later on in the process, it is critical to know why you are investing before considering what you should actually invest in...

Of all the tools at the disposal of investors, few people recognize the financial significance of sequencing. Sequencing has the potential to add great value, but when ignored can be a devastating mistake for those seeking financial security and independence. In fact, when it comes to financial decisions, proper sequencing is as important as...

Expectations can be a funny beast. When I was in college and then early in my career in the 1970s, my father and his friends felt ‘terrible’ about the world being handed to my generation. It was the end of the Vietnam War and for the first time an American President had resigned. There was skyrocketing inflation and soaring interest rates (also known by that dreaded term of stagflation), and the post-World War II era of cheap oil that...

Imagine this scenario: A client has a number of various retirement accounts that have grown over decades of work. The client has divorced and remarried. Years later, her first husband passes away for any number of reasons (a busy life and career to name a few), yet remains the beneficiary of...

Today, everyone has their own unique style of communication, and these various modes can be both a blessing and a curse for the engaged relationship. However, it is a real dilemma when a client chooses to sporadically siphon information using various mediums and neglects to openly and consistently communicate with those they’ve installed as partners in their financial security...

When your plumber who has kept your toilets flushing happily for 25 years says he is retiring, what is your plan? Demographics and professional transitions have been a topic of discussion on our team over the past few years and should be for your family as well...

Never has the need for education been so great, yet never have the majority of options consumed such a high percentage of gross income, nor left students with such burdening sums of student loan debt. No state represents this conundrum better than New Hampshire which was recently ranked first for the highest average ...

After almost 8 years in a U.S. bull market, there seems to be an incessant drumbeat for passive investment strategies by both institutional and individual investors alike. The ongoing debate around active vs. passive management stems from the fact that on average...

Just as we have questioned the true value and cost of higher education in an era of increasing student loan debt (and stagnating wages), how we handle the questions of where to live and how much to spend on housing should also come under scrutiny...

The myriad choices we make over a lifetime regarding our finances, education, health, family, social life, and career often have a cumulative and profound impact on our financial security and our ability to enjoy the fruits of our labor. In an era of uncertain, and likely lower, financial...

Regular readers know that we are not shy about tackling controversial issues that impact both our clients and the larger society. The very real and potential generational battle about the future is one deserving of thoughtful consideration and discussion. This subtle clash is in the form of an inter-generational conflict between...

A decade or two ago it would have been inconceivable for Americans to consider their family size as an economic decision. Even bringing it up now seems slightly un-American. No matter what the family size was during the unprecedented post-World War II economic boom, it felt that standards of living would continue to rise and rise. For many, that model has now been reduced to a nostalgic mirage...

Among his many talents, founding father Benjamin Franklin had a knack for getting to the core of transcendent issues of his times and remarkably ours too. The self-taught Franklin became a success because he understood rightly in the 18th Century that...

Imagine a sports team with aging “stars” that are hard to replace, fans who invest their hardearned money and deserve the best, and team owners having trouble adapting to a new...

Our economy is spawning a new sector of micro-entrepreneurs and, while the current overall economic impact is minor (not unlike Amazon in 2000), this technological transformation is expected to explode in the next decade...

If the miracles promised you by the pharmaceutical industry seem to dominate the advertising between your favorite television shows, a close second is the financial services industry with ads aplenty about how company XY or Z can miraculously help you and your family set and meet your life’s goals...

The future landscape of the financial services industry continues to knock, knock, knock on the door today - and every day. Whether financial services firms will be welcomed in the future, or not, will likely determine if they will survive. How might the current firms even thrive in a tomorrow that is rapidly changing and being structured now is unknown...

Please enjoy this insight into the why and the how of our new partnership with Steward Partners and relationship with Raymond James evolved and developed. We thank you for your patience, encouragement and support in making this transition as seamless and productive as possible...

After lagging U.S. equities from 2012 through 2016, foreign markets had a huge boost in 2017, with the MSCI Emerging market index generating ~37% gains. 2017 was also the second year in a row during which all mainstream asset classes were positive. This was a fun result, especially for the disciplined and global investor, and one very few expected, given the geopolitical climate heading into 2017. And while investors may have hoped for the same events to transpire this year...

The reference dictionary.com defines the word “steward” as “a person who acts as a surrogate of another or others, especially by managing property, financial affairs, an estate, etc.”

Tax deferral in one’s 401ks and retirement savings are often a case of “out of sight, out of mind”. Automated savings is understandably easy to do but, as always, there’s often a critical catch: will your nest egg be worth what it should be in real, spendable, after tax dollars when you need it?

While we live in most uncertain times, one would like to be assured that “financial advisors” would act as fiduciaries for their clients - placing client needs before their own as well as their firm’s needs...

For most people, housing transitions are infrequent, though hugely influential. After paying expenses devoted to taxes, savings, and children, housing-related expenses (mortgage costs, taxes, upkeep and insurance) typically consume the largest percentage of...

In July of this year, a major investment firm announced that ‘global markets were on track to be the most volatile since 2008’ 1 . For many, this was hard to imagine at the time. Now, not so much. October 2018 was a healthy reminder of what a correction feels like...

Pick any day or a couple of days when markets swoon and one thing is as sure as Newton’s Law of Gravity: the Pavlovian reaction of greed and fear among investors. When you throw in 24/7 news cycles of social media speculation and news with reports lacking historical context...

What is one of the top challenges faced by any fiduciary in an era of 24/7 news bombardment? The answer is reminding their clients of this critical fundamental fact: most financial goals will take years of review, honing and attention...

What might you respond to an advisor who emphatically tells you that taxes will, without a doubt, increase in the future? Would you thank them for being a wise fiduciary and for thinking proactively to help you prepare for a future of potential economic and tax volatility?

During volatile down periods in the market such as we saw in December, we were busy for many reasons. We worked with our clients to educate them about what was happening (markets go up and down) but also to perform constructive triage via Tax Loss Harvesting - an important element of a wise investment strategy meant to help save investors’ money over time...

Dutch historian Rutger Bregman made his first appearance at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos with all the subtlety of a skunk at a garden party. His topic? Tax avoidance. “We can invite Bono once more but come on we’ve got to start talking about taxes,” he said...

Here is the latest update of a popular market valuation method using the most recent Standard & Poor's "as reported" earnings and earnings estimates and the index monthly average of daily closes for the past month. For the earnings, see the table below created from Standard & Poor's latest earnings spreadsheet...

Family dinners are likely to be much more interesting in the future. A debate about paying entitlements may be the topic de jour. In an era of increasing political polarization it has become too easy and too simplistic to paint the many combative issues with just a swipe of a broad “Blue vs. Red” brush stroke...

When will the next recession hit? This question is often the subject of speculation and guesswork; yet few have an honest answer. It is not a pessimistic query. Investment choices are as much psychological as they are strategic and tremors regarding recessions are real. It’s normal to think that after an abnormally long period of sub-par expansion that economic growth has to end…

Do you know what “recency bias” is? And if so, when was the last time you had a heart to heart conversation with yourself about recency bias? Unlike lawyers in a courtroom, these are intended to be leading questions for a very good reason: little is more detrimental to a portfolio’s long-term health than the belief that the status quo is here to stay...

Without much fanfare in May, the House of Representatives passed one of most significant retirement “saving” pieces of legislation in decades. Known as the SECURE Act (Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement), the measure is an attempt by Congress to get more Americans to save for retirement. As of this writing it is hung up in the Senate but elements of the bill will impact us all eventually and we are always wary of cute acronyms...

The headlines of late have been filled with impeachment scenarios in the United States and incompetent leadership in Great Britain as the Brexit countdown to real economic consequences winds down...

When we advise clients that tax rates likely aren’t going to be lower in the foreseeable future, we encourage them to mitigate the risk within their plan and portfolio by working together to create future tax flexibility and efficiency . When they ask us why this will be the case, it is our obligation to educate them about a wide range of issues...

Quantifying the essential component of risk tolerance for our clients is no simple matter. For years, accessing risk has been more of an overall psychological assessment than anything. The formula reduced to its basics was a combination of determining how people remember and react to market fluctuations, an honest accounting of their financial habits, and their long-term goals...

Tom Sedoric and Casey Snyder host a conversation about the current economic environment, and provide their insights on the unusual economic events of 2019.

Among many things, the New Year brings two inevitable events: the grind of tax season (especially for the unprepared) and a slew of economic and market forecasts that often read like a rejected comedy skit for Saturday Night Live...

Shortly before Christmas, the 2020 federal budget bill passed with strong bipartisan majorities and was signed into law by President Trump. As it came amid the holiday season, a possible government shutdown, and an impeachment vote in the House of Representatives, it was easy overlook that the more than $4.6 trillion budget came with the typical additions to federal spending we have seen over the years...