On Friday, March 10, regulators took control of Silicon Valley Bank as a run on the bank unfolded. Two days later, regulators took control of a second lender, Signature Bank. With increasing anxiety, many investors are eyeing their portfolios for exposure to these and other regional banks. Rather than rummaging through your portfolio looking for trouble when headlines make you anxious, turn instead to your investment plan. Hopefully, your plan is designed with your long-term goals in mind and is
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Insights
When Headlines Worry You, Bank on Investment Principles

Protecting and Maximizing Your Cash and Emergency Savings – Fundamental and Advanced Planning

“Every ten years or so the world falls apart… How can I remain standing, when the world breaks”. Morgan Housel(1) I’m not suggesting the world is currently breaking, but there will always be financial uncertainty in the world – pandemics, wars, financial crisis, real estate crisis – just to name the most recent. So how do you weather these storms and stay invested and committed to achieving your long term goals while protecting your short term needs as you
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Advanced Planning – Wealth Creation to Wealth Preservation

Certain planning situations like when a client is scheduled to receive substantial sums of wealth ($5M-$15M+) call for advanced planning techniques. Our client may feel a need to transition from wealth creation to wealth preservation. These scenarios include a large inheritance, liquidation scenarios such as a company sale, either a personal company or a corporate sale when the client holds a sizeable amount of company stock, and/or simply the payment of a large bonus. Advanced planning techniques include the consideration
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Concentrated Stock: Minimizing Single Stock Risk in Your Portfolio

As a fiduciary, MFG is committed to illustrating all investment options available to our clients, identifying pros and cons of each opportunity and assisting in making informed decisions based on your personal investment plan and financial life. One way we support our clients is by minimizing single stock risk in your portfolio caused by stock concentration. We define a concentrated position as a single stock or handful of stocks making up 10% or more of someone’s investable assets. Stock concentration
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Are Americans Too Pessimistic About the Economy?

These days there’s a wide gap between what Americans think about the economy and the state of their personal pocketbooks. What’s going on? I study households’ economic expectations and their financial decisions and believe people may be overreacting to the current news cycle with their pessimism about how the economy is doing. Objectively, U.S. households are in pretty good shape. We have a higher level of savings than before COVID, thanks to the government stimulus payments during 2020 and 2021
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What’s Your True Net Worth?

Many apps today claim to instantly calculate your net worth by adding up your banking and investment accounts and then deducting what you owe on your credit cards and mortgage. But in my mind, that number reflects wealth. Worth is more complex. Because I believe that if you make life better for someone else, then you’re worth something. That’s true in business, and it’s true in life. My parents never made a lot of money, but they were worth a
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