Wealth Management Archives - Rightpath Investments & Financial Planning, Inc.

1st Quarter Client Note – Diversification Works. Until it Doesn’t. Then it Works Again.

Waypoints / Steven Smith / April 7, 2025

The market’s first quarter performance (S&P 500 Index down 4.3%; globally diversified balanced portfolios down less than 1%) have taken a back seat next to what happened in the following week. Trade War Erupts But the big news happened after the end of the quarter, on Wednesday April 2 (so called “Liberation Day”), when President […]

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4th Quarter Client Note – Another Stellar Year for Stocks

Waypoints / Steven Smith / January 20, 2025

The S&P 500 (total return) Index rose 25% in 2024. That came on the heels of a 24% gain in 2023. Resulting in the best consecutive two-year increase since 1997/1998 – the heart of what turned out to be the tech bubble. US Large Cap stocks trounced every other asset class. (Except for maybe Bitcoin

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Time Flies When You’re Paying Less in Taxes – Trump Tax Cuts to Sunset in 2025

Meanderings, Uncategorized / Steven Smith / June 17, 2024

During Donald Trump’s first year in office, Congress passed the Tax Cut and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA). It was the broadest tax package in decades. Due to an obscure Senate rule most comprehensive changes to the tax code expire – or “Sunset” – after ten years. Astonishingly, the TCJA is due to expire on

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1st Quarter Client Note – Nvidia, Bitcoin and the Loss of Another Giant

Waypoints / Steven Smith / April 17, 2024

For the most part, 2024’s first quarter markets performed exceptionally well. The S&P 500 (Total Return) Index gained 10.56% — on the heels of 2023’s stellar gain of 26.29% The market continues to be led by high tech growth stocks; contributing further to concentration and overweight in highly valued companies. But not by as wide

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4th Quarter Client Note – Who Woulda Thunk It?

Waypoints / Steven Smith / January 18, 2024

2023 began on the heels of one of the worst years both stock and bond markets have seen. Here is a bleak reminder: Beginning in March of 2022, to combat rising inflation, the Fed hiked interest rates seven times. By October of this year the 10-year Treasury yield had topped 5% for the first time

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1st Quarter Client Note — Bank Runs Are Back

Waypoints / Right Path Investments / April 14, 2023

The markets shook off news of dramatic bank runs and failed banks being taken over by the FDIC and sold off in piece parts. Led by a big rebound in technology stocks, the S& P 500 (Total Return) Index gained 7.57% in the quarter. Large cap growth technology stocks were up 14.3% with large cap

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Will Artificial Intelligence replace your financial planner?

Meanderings, Wealth Management / Steven Smith / February 9, 2023

Artificial Intelligence applications — and especially chatbots, which can seemingly research and write like us humans, are becoming increasingly prevalent. Chatbots are by no means perfect in the output they produce. And they are somewhat controversial, particularly in academia, as students begin to use them to assist with their homework. The following answer to the

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3rd Quarter Client Note – A Roller Coaster Ride

Waypoints / Steven Smith / October 13, 2022

Talk about a yo-yo. We reached bear market (top-to-bottom drawdown of 20% or greater) status twice this year. The S & P 500 (total return) index was down 22% on June 13, 2022. Then recovered to be down only 9% on August 16. But ended the third quarter down 24% for the year. Since I

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Options for Senior Living through the Spectrum of Aging

Meanderings / Steven Smith / April 18, 2022

Planning for our senior years would be so much easier if we knew how long we will live and the state of our health toward the end of our lives. In my specialty of retirement planning, I have to ask my clients to ponder the imponderable: late-life care. In this article I share information about

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Book Review: The One Page Financial Plan: A Simple Way to be Smart About Your Money, Carl Richards (Penguin 2015)

Financial Lifestyle, Peak Thoughts, Retirement, Wealth Management / Steven Smith / November 15, 2021

Running joke: If it’s a one-page financial plan, then why isn’t the book only one page? I first read Carl Richards’ novelty of a book, The One-Page Financial Plan, when it was published in 2015. But I only recently grabbed it off the shelf to re-read and figure out ways to apply it in our

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