As 2023 comes to a close, you and your family reflect on where you’ve been and where you’d like to go.
As the year wraps up, it’s natural to think about your goals — professionally, personally, and financially. It’s something that you and your household will want to assess and talk about openly and honestly.
Read MoreWe are living, and investing, through a time of significant and accelerating change. It’s impacting every single aspect of our lives. Everywhere around us we can see and feel the signs of fatigue and heightened emotion that go with it.
Read MoreAs we pass the midpoint of the year, it seems that more than a few outspoken market prognosticators have been caught by surprise that stock markets across the board have rallied substantially. The brutal recession that many had vociferously forecast as the inevitable result of rising interest rates has failed to materialize…
Read MoreAs I sit down to write this on the final day of June 2023, I’ve just deleted an email that arrived in my inbox this morning with the subject line: “Master AI or Be Destroyed by it.”
Read MoreWe hope you have a safe, happy, and enjoyable Memorial Day weekend, and a great summer to come!
Read MoreWikipedia defines stewardship as “an ethical value that embodies the responsible planning and management of resources.” It notes that the word derives originally from stig (meaning house or hall) and weard (meaning ward, guard, guardian, or keeper) and states that “stewardship is now generally recognized as the acceptance or assignment of responsibility to shepherd and safeguard the valuables of others.”
Read MoreThis is a long a complicated act and there are still some issues to be worked out by either Congress or the IRS as some of the provisions have some clear errors in them that contradict already existing law without clarification. These have to do with Required Minimum Distributions, SEP and SIMPLE IRA plan changes, and Roth Catch-up contributions in retirement plans. However, history does suggest that in time this will all get settled into a clearer law that hopefully we can all understand.
Read MoreIt is easy to buy investments. What’s hard is owning the right portfolio over the long term.
For an illustration, as I write this on February 28, 2023, I’ve just looked back at a missive I wrote on this day exactly three years ago, in the very beginning stages of the COVID crisis that continues to send aftershocks of disruption and anxiety through our world.
Read MoreHappy New Year! All of us here hope 2023 brings you health, happiness, prosperity, and enough personal challenge and growth to make life interesting and fulfilling.
And thank you. I feel truly fortunate to serve such great clients and friends. You are, to a person, people I like, trust, and respect.
Read MoreAll of us at Lucien, Stirling & Gray wish you and your families a very
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
We hope 2023 brings you health, happiness and prosperity.
Read MoreWith all the inflation we have seen this year, is there any silver lining to be found? Like most things in life, it depends on how you choose to look at it. So, let’s take a look at some of the changes taking place in 2023, and examine both the benefits and the costs that have come about in response to inflation.
Read MoreI believe that truly investing in anything for the long term, just like the decision to become a parent and raise a family, or to build and manage a business through many decades of uncertainty and challenge, or to stalwartly own a portfolio comprised of the great companies of the US and the world, is an open-ended act of faith.
Read MoreOne of the benefits of having written these quarterly missives for more than 20 years is the ability to look back with the benefit of hindsight and grade my own work. Another is the opportunity to revisit thoughts I developed years ago, and to update and reinforce them in a whole new context.
Read MoreThe first half of 2022 was a disheartening experience for all of us. As the personal Quarterly Review that accompanies this report attests, your investment portfolio experienced painful declines, as did the accounts of every single one of our clients. Each of us here has shared a similar experience as investors ourselves,…
Read MoreIt’s no secret that I think people in general are way too fixated on myopic, short-term outlooks. They’re not patient or disciplined enough to take a deep breath, get a broad perspective, and just chill - especially when conditions are volatile and a little unclear.
Nowhere is this shortcoming more prevalent than in the financial profession. Speculators abound and myopia rules the day.
Read MoreLast year, long before this current downturn started, I wrote about the incredible frequency with which we had seen the words “uncharted territory” being bandied about in the financial press. It seemed like every other talking head made it part of their daily repertoire in vapid attempts to appear profound in their observations about the environment we’re all navigating.
Read MoreThe Secure Act, enacted in 2019, left many open questions about RMDs
· The proposed IRS regulations are filled with in-depth information on how the Secure Act RMD rules will be applied in the future
· The proposed regs are now out for a 90-day public comment period, with a public hearing to be held June 15
On Wednesday February 23rd, The Internal Revenue Service released long-awaited proposed regulations that address unanswered questions concerning Required Minimum Distributions under the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement (SECURE) Act of 2019.
Read MoreIn our missive of last month, which was actually a re-publication of my President’s Message for our Q4 2021 Report – and therefore written before the Russian invasion of Ukraine – I encouraged our readers to take a long-range view and buckle your seat belts, because the intermediate term future for financial markets looked pretty bumpy to me.
For obvious reasons now, I feel compelled to reiterate that advice here – but I want to augment it with two very concrete examples of why taking the long view is so critical.
Read MoreIf the second year of this pandemic taught us anything, it’s that the pace of disruption in our world isn’t slowing down any time soon. On the other hand, neither is human ingenuity, creativity, and drive. That’s an important point for all long-term investors to recognize and remember.
But it is not easy to keep a faithful, patient, and disciplined eye on the far horizon when all around you seems so tumultuous.
Read MoreWhile cyber scams have been around since the invention of the internet, these scams have become part of our daily lives now more than ever. In fact, cyber scammers are expected to steal over $3 billion in 2022. The good news is, with most scams the warning signs are there if you know what to look for. We have put together a guide that can help you spot scams and protect yourself from falling victim to their schemes.
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