May 16, 2018 Market Update for the Month Ending April 30, 2018

Markets start to spring back

U.S. markets rebounded in April after two turbulent months. The S&P 500 Index gained 0.38 percent, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.34 percent, and the Nasdaq Composite posted a 0.08-percent return. 

May 16, 2018 Are You Making These Security Mistakes with Your Smartphone?

It’s tough to remember how we managed our daily lives without smartphones. How did we get around town without quick access to Google Maps? Pay our bills on time before we had credit card and banking apps? Or let someone know we were running late without text messaging?

May 16, 2018 Finding the Right Risk Management Tool and the Right Time

Each generation of people has different financial and risk management needs, and those needs evolve over time. Helping your clients identify key concerns at various milestones is a great way to start a conversation about their present and future circumstances. Often, they may not be aware of gaps in their financial plan.

April 10, 2018 Market Update for the Quarter Ending March 31, 2018

Stormy March drags down markets

March was a rough month for markets, with all three major U.S. indices finishing down. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 3.59 percent, the S&P 500 Index fell 2.54 percent, and the Nasdaq Composite was down 2.79 percent. For the quarter, the Dow and S&P were down 1.96 percent and 0.76 percent, respectively. But the Nasdaq gained 2.59 percent.

April 10, 2018 The Family Conversation: Addressing Your Health Care Needs in Retirement

Maybe you and your family have already attempted to have “the conversation.” You know the one: the discussion about your and your spouse’s assets and what will be done with those assets during the rest of your lives and after you pass away. Perhaps, because of your children’s sibling rivalries, the family conversation turned to one about gifts and inheritances and about who deserves more or less of the assets based on “good” or “bad” behavior. If things continued this way, you likely skipped over the most important aspect of this conversation: how the assets will be used to pay for your health care during retirement and how much that health care will cost. 

April 10, 2018 What Should You Do if You Are a Victim of Tax Identity Theft?

When it comes to filing your tax return, you put in the time and effort to complete every form accurately and according to the instructions. But even if you do everything by the book, a tax identity thief may still file a fraudulent return in your name. Unfortunately, this happens all too often. In fact, despite having prevented more than 787,000 fraudulent tax returns in 2016, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) paid out $239 million in “suspect” refunds.