Insights

In recent days, the increase in volatility in the stock market has resulted in renewed anxiety for many investors. While it may be difficult to remain calm during a substantial market decline, it is important to remember that volatility is a normal part of investing. Additionally, for long-term investors, reacting emotionally to volatile markets may be more detrimental to portfolio performance than the drawdown itself. Intra-Year Declines Exhibit 1 shows calendar year returns for the US stock market since 1979, as well
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Review your W2 and 1099s with your Independent CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER TM. Your 1099s and W2s provide valuable information about your earnings and investing habits. If your salary has increased, have you also increased your savings and investment rates? Apply income/salary to living expenses, and bonuses and stock options proceeds to retirement goals. If your mutual funds made sizable capital gains distributions, would you be better off holding low cost, tax-managed institutional funds in your taxable account(s)? Bump up contribution rates
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Most taxpayers envision Internal Revenue Service audits as intrusive investigations resulting in criminal sentences. Today, nothing could be farther than the truth: The IRS’s auditing power has been greatly diminished in the past decade. IRS audit resources have been reduced by 28 percent in the last decade and the audit rate has dropped from 0.9 percent in 2010 to 0.5 percent in 2018. In fact, the number of IRS audits in 2018 (991,168) dropped by almost half compared to 2010
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