June 01 2021

Investor Insights - June 2021

See our recap of May's key statistics and market commentary below.  Noteworthy Numbers 13.2%  The Case-Shiller Index, the leading measure of U.S. home prices, gained 13.2% in March, according to data released in May. This is the largest increase sinc...

May 21 2021

RMDs for Beneficiaries in Qualified Retirement Plans

When an employee in a qualified retirement plan dies, the employee’s account balance has to be distributed to the beneficiary at a certain rate over a certain timeframe. The money cannot stay in the plan forever. What is that timeframe? When do distr...

May 07 2021

Investor Insights - May 2021

See our recap of February's key statistics and market commentary below.  Noteworthy Numbers 45.8% As of April 30, FactSet reports the first quarter year over year earnings growth for companies in the S&P 500 was on track to be 45.8%. This is near...

April 29 2021

Catch-Up Contributions: A Good Thing for Both Men and Women

Back in 2001, a law called the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act (EGTRRA) was passed. Some referred to it as the Bush Tax Cuts, Round One. The law had a number of provisions related to qualified retirement plans. Among these, in a sec...

April 01 2021

Investor Insights - April 2021

See our recap of February's key statistics and market commentary below.  Noteworthy Numbers An estimated $9.6 billion in goods moves through the Suez Canal each day. Traffic ground to halt for nearly a week in late March as a containership, the Ever ...

March 11 2021

Did you pay back your RMD last year? Make sure your CPA knows.

In 2020, as part of the CARES Act COVID-19 relief bill, Congress waived the requirement to take a minimum distribution from certain retirement accounts. The waiver wasn’t enacted until March, though, and by then many investors had already taken some ...

March 01 2021

Investor Insights - March 2021

See our recap of February's key statistics and market commentary below.  Noteworthy Numbers The outperformance of the S&P 500 Value index against the S&P 500 Growth index during the month of February. Value stocks, which drastically underperf...

February 01 2021

Investor Insights - February 2021

See our recap of January's key statistics and market commentary below.  Noteworthy Numbers According to JP Morgan, with 49.9% of companies in the S&P 500 having reported Q4 earnings so far, 84% have beaten their estimated earnings and 70% have be...

January 04 2021

Investor Insights - January 2021

See our recap of December's key statistics and market commentary below.  Noteworthy Numbers The S&P 500 locked in an 18.40% return in 2020, an excellent feat in any year, and even more so in year during which the global economy shut down due to a...

December 23 2020

Mega Backdoor Roth IRA: A Neat Idea that Rarely Works

Lately, several people have asked me about a “mega backdoor Roth IRA.” I didn’t really know what this was, but anything with “backdoor” in the name is something I want to explore. It sounds a little devious. Maybe I could finally be a bad boy – more ...