In our Third-Quarter Newsletter, we highlighted potential legislation relating to retirement planning for people of all ages - with many of the most substantive changes impacting tax-advantaged savings accounts. These provisions, which are part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023, of...

What is a Qualified Charitable Distribution (a “QCD”) and why might it be advantageous for those who can do them? A QCD is a distribution from your IRA directly to a qualified charity (versus taking a distribution from your IRA and then making a charitable contribution). A QCD count...

  The 4th quarter was a much-needed reprieve from the poor performance of markets in the first 9 months of the year. Events like the midterm elections and the FTX/crypto blowup caught headlines along the way, but the driver of market performance continued to be inflation and the Federal Rese...

Wall Street Journal reporter, Jason Zweig, published a fascinating story last week that details how difficult markets are to predict and provides great documentation of hindsight bias. Hindsight bias is the phenomenon where people perceive events in the past as having been more predictable than t...

A big headline in recent weeks has been the 8.7% cost-of-living increase Seniors will be getting next year. That increase, the largest since 1982, will be very useful in offsetting the higher costs consumers are seeing. Luckily for seniors, the good news didn’t stop there. Around the same t...

It’s human nature to prefer owning stocks that have performed well recently. But the reality is that returns tend to be cyclical and a decade of outperformance is usually followed by underperformance. In the stock market, there are countless examples of this phenomenon: Large Cap US St...

As we get older and begin to reflect on our mortality, our priorities begin to change. In reading many articles and surveys about what is most important to retirees, the top of the lists include physical, mental and emotional health, relationships, socialization, and maintaining independence. Far...

You may be aware that if you inherit a retirement account after 2019 you must fully deplete that account within 10 years - exceptions include being the surviving spouse, being less than 10 years younger than the original owner or falling into another special category of beneficiary. What you may...

An old joke on Wall Street is that the Chair of Federal Reserve is the most powerful person in the world. To many it’s no longer a joke. If there are whispers the Fed may not hike as aggressively, all asset classes seem to rally together and if we get hawkish language from the Fed, everything...

2022 has been an ugly year for the markets. The total world stock market is down 17.5% and bonds are down 11.5%. But company earnings have grown 6% this year and bonds haven’t defaulted so what gives? Discount Rates: The most direct answer is that “discount rates” used to value...

Today, the Bureau of Labor Statistics posted a great jobs report. The economy added 315,000 jobs, above the consensus estimate with manufacturing job gains coming in strong as well, adding 22,000 positions – again above the consensus. While low wage growth is generally not something to celebra...

This famous quote by Warren Buffet is one of the most well-known quotes related to investing. At its core is the idea that investors’ emotions betray them, and it pays to be contrarian. When the market is up, people feel good about investing and want to “get in.” On the other hand,...

Income tax planning is a crucial aspect of the overall financial planning process. Making tax efficient decisions requires a deep understanding of the tax rules and regulations. Changes to these rules may present new planning opportunities for those paying close attention. Those not paying attention...

Today’s Struggles: So far, 2022 has been a historically bad year – especially for bonds. The aggregate bond market is down 11.6%. If the year ended today, that would be far worse than its worst year on record, 1994, when it dropped 2.9% (The index’s inception is 1976). Similarly, g...

Food and Energy prices have risen steadily from January 2021 through May 2022. Over that 17-month period, the direct cost of food and energy has increased by 22%, which has been a huge driver of inflation. That 22% increase means it is a larger share of total consumer spending. As of March, it stood...

In Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, it was asked, “What news on the Rialto?” now finally there’s an answer. Welcome to Rialto Wealth Management! The founding partners, Ed Barno, Mike Antonacci, and Ethan Gilbert are excited to draw upon their combined over sixty years...