kerriemsfsblog

Money, Therapy, and Life

From the Archives of 2016… updated for the “Coronavirus Life Experience”.

Money and Therapy. Two things that people may love or hate. However, among other things, money and therapy help.

Recently I finished a must-read book for all ages – wealthy or building wealth, married or single. Anyone who wants to have a “life” someday… or even have a life NOW. The book is called The Number* and was written in 2006 by Lee Eisenberg (long time editor-in-chief of Esquire magazine) but reads like he wrote it yesterday.

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Zero Interest Rate World

Low and near-zero interest rates have become a fact of life. Rates could likely remain low for the foreseeable future based on the economic and US Federal Reserve environment. This statement is not meant to be a predictor of where interest rates are going. Still, the fact of near-zero interest rates needs to be on investors’ radar screens, as boring as the topic may sound!

The bond market and interest rates involve far, far more complicated math than stocks. Trying to predict bond prices and interest rates is mostly not worthwhile.

Near-zero interest rates needs to be on investors’ radar screens.

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The GameStop Incident

OK, I’ll admit it. Until last week I had not heard of Gamestop – the company or the stock.

Of course, I have now heard of Gamestop and more including Reddit, wallstreetbets, Webull and Keith Gill (Keith Gill was called the “Original O.G.” by one trader*). And as a financial professional I am knowledgeable about what short-selling is and how “the shorts”, as they call traders who sell short stocks and other securities, can get “squeezed”. Gamestop brought shorts, short-selling and short squeezes to an entirely new level.

As Brett Danko, the founder of my firm, recently described it, “the Gamestop incident of last week transcended the world of stock trading… both for major institutional traders and individual traders”. Keith Gill and the individuals trading off chat board messages transcended stock trading similar to how Michael Jordan transcended the sport of basketball and even Muhamad Ali transcended the sport of boxing. These people and events became larger than real life – for a time.

Emotion is nearly impossible to control in trading – *especially* when video and social media are added to the equation.

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Video: 401k Tip and a Cautionary Story

Thank you for watching. Stay safe and TGIF!

Kerrie

*The 401k Trap: Contact me for a copy at kdebbs@msfsolutions.com*

Last Year’s Paycheck

Believe it or not, lots of people do not know how much they get paid. That is, in terms of total compensation. Of course, there are that handful of people who know exactly what they make – and most people know precisely their “net pay” that gets deposited into their bank account periodically. But in my years of discussing total compensation with my clients (who typically make a fair amount of money) a great deal of the time they do not know accurately enough how much they made in a given year.

January is an ideal time to take a closer look at a print-out of last year’s year-end pay stub to learn valuable details and information. Why is this important?

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The 401k Trap

The real title of this edition is: The 401k Trap – Have a 401k Strategy.

It has become clear that there is more to saving in a 401k than…simply saving in a 401k. Last year, amidst no travel and not being able to see clients and friends face-to-face, two colleagues and I took 5 months to write an actionable guide to the critical need – due to potentially higher taxes in the future – for a strategy around 401k saving TODAY. For Everyone. The name of the paper is: The 401k Trap.

For those who are just getting started saving in a company 401k or 403b, the strategies we suggest could make a huge difference in 10 years and beyond; for those who have been saving in a 401k for 15-20 years or more, a strategy may be even more urgent.

The key reason is taxes. It is true that no one knows for sure where tax rates will be in 5-10-20 years from today. But with history as a guide and the fact that tax rates on the federal level are near all-time lows, the conclusion can be drawn that tax rates will only be higher in the intermediate- and long-term future. This state of affairs will punish those who have done the hard work of saving large balances in pre-tax 401k and IRA accounts.

Here is the Table of Contents – please email me at kdebbs@msfsolutions.com for a copy of the paper.

Oh, How Times Have Changed!
Longevity
401k Today
Risk of Increased Government Spending

An Aging Population
Dirty Little Secret
Historic Tax Brackets
Surprise

The Earlier the Better
The Debt Clock
The Wake-Up Call

Bonus Checklist

Thank you for reading, stay safe and TGIF!

Hindsight is 2020

Perhaps the perfect way to “look at” 2020 – is in hindsight! Who on earth could have predicted what went down in world and market events in 2020, both bad and good? Who will ever be able to accurately predict markets? And why is this important?

Funny, there will always be those people who seriously believe and will say out loud that:

they knew a pandemic would strike,
the economy was due to come to a screeching halt,
they predicted the timing of the market turnaround,
they knew the US Fed would abruptly lower benchmark interest rates back to zero,
Etc., etc., etc.

*The smartest of the smart recently admitted they could never have predicted the events of 2020 and how they played out in stock, bond, real estate, and commodities markets.*

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Looking Ahead to What’s to Come

As we approach the end of an extremely weird and difficult year, no doubt what is on lots of people’s minds: What is to come in the months and year immediately ahead?

From an economic and financial standpoint, a great deal depends on several factors very well summed up in a recent The Wall Street Journal article.*

In order to gauge how early 2021 will look, we need to understand:

How bad this latest surge in coronavirus cases might get?
What measures people and state and local governments take and the resulting effects on spending?
How much relief will come from the federal government?
How much better things will look toward the end of 1Q 2021?

***As we approach the end of an extremely weird and difficult year, no doubt what is on lots of people’s minds: What is to come in the months and year immediately ahead?***

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Caring For an Aging Friend

Back in 2017 & 2018 TGIF 2 Minutes explored “Caring For Aging Parents”. The topic and its challenges will always be timely. And there is another angle to the issue that can be equally as gut-wrenching: caring for – or caring about – an aging friend or neighbor who has little or no family available and no apparent plan for aging.

**Friends are not family,** but we can care about friends just as much or more.

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