By Steven Smith | Peak Thoughts , Uncategorized
If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs… Rudyard Kipling, from the poem If, circa 1895 We will forever be debating the causes of the 2008 financial crisis and the government’s attempts to minimize its effects. But the worst modern bear market other than the one caused by the Great […]
Continue readingBy Steven Smith | Meanderings , Uncategorized
It’s only been a few weeks since the passing of John Bogle, the inventor of the index fund. In memoriam, I – along with many others – was singing the praises of the index fund for its ultra-low-cost ability to track the broad market. One writer has even given credit to the index fund for […]
Continue readingBy Steven Smith | Meanderings , Uncategorized
Millions of American investors – including yours truly – owe a debt of gratitude to John “Jack” Bogle, who died on January 16 at the age of 89. Adulations have been pouring in for the inventor of the index fund (dubbed “Bogle’s Folly by critics at the time) and founder of Vanguard. Even from the […]
Continue readingBy Steven Smith | Waypoints
The S & P 500 (total return) Index fell 13.52% in the 4th quarter, bringing the benchmark index to a loss for the year of 4.38%. This, following a best-quarter-in-five-years gain of 7.2% in the 3rd quarter. The negative 9.03% in December was the 11th worst month in the past 50 years. The three worst […]
Continue readingBy Steven Smith | Investment Management , Meanderings , Uncategorized
Has it really been ten years? One of the low lights indelibly associated with the Great Recession of 2008 was the discovery and unraveling of Bernie Madoff’s massive Ponzi scheme. It feels like only yesterday that I wrote about that almost incomprehensible fiasco in real time. But the journalist Erin Arvedlund wrote the book on […]
Continue readingBy Steven Smith | Meanderings , Mountain Lifestyle , Uncategorized
As if planning to fund your retirement weren’t difficult enough. In a story in the Denver Post, we now learn of a study by SmartAssets that Denver – and by extension – our beloved Colorado mountains – is one of the country’s most expensive places to retire. This is largely because of the cost of […]
Continue readingBy Steven Smith | Peak Thoughts , Philanthropy , Tax Planning , Uncategorized
‘Tis the season…for charitable giving. In our last post, we discussed the basics of the new tax law, its possible effects on charitable donations and the concept of “bunching” and a Donor Advised Fund as a workaround. Today we address the IRA charitable rollover – or, more technically, the qualified charitable distribution (QCD). IRA Goes […]
Continue readingBy Steven Smith | Peak Thoughts , Philanthropy , Uncategorized
Nothing sharpens the mind like a deadline. Sometime around Halloween, when we have a couple of months left in the year, we begin to think in earnest about our charitable giving. On account of the charitable contribution deduction on Schedule A of the 1040 individual income tax return, many taxpayers scramble to complete their charitable […]
Continue readingBy Steven Smith | Financial Lifestyle , Meanderings , Uncategorized
Where are you on the Spectrum of Financial Dependence and Independence? (H/T to financial planning guru Michael Kitces for including this article by Morgan Housel in his October 19, Weekly Reading for Financial Planners.) Continuums I love continuums. Or is it contiua? You’ve seen a million of them. They are generally represented graphically, in an […]
Continue readingBy Steven Smith | Investment Management , Waypoints
The S & P 500 (total return) Index experienced its best quarter in five years, rising 7.2%. (Of course, things happen so fast, that as of this writing the S&P 500 has fallen almost 4.5% in the first nine days of the third quarter; led largely by falling technology stocks and possibly attributed to the […]
Continue reading