Our team regularly reads articles from industry peers and trusted resources to stay up to date on financial markets.  We enjoy reading about topics related to economics, investments, current events, and financial planning.

In addition to circulating some of the best pieces internally, we thought our clients, partners, and friends might enjoy reading some of the same articles as us.

Here are recent pieces that our team members have read, along with some commentary on why we found the respective articles interesting.

Ben Bremen: Money market funds are paying above 5%. What to know before ditching your savings account

The article does a nice job explaining the benefits and risks of moving excess cash from a traditional checking/savings account to a money market mutual fund.  Anyone with excess cash sitting in a low- yielding checking account should evaluate their cash management strategy.  Although the increasing interest rates have created a bit of uncertainty, earning a reasonable yield on cash is one of the benefits!

Andrew Cohn: IRS announces administrative transition period for new Roth catch up requirement; catch-up contributions still permitted after 2023

The IRS announced a 2-year administrative transition period for all Plan Administrators to implement the legislative requirements.

For 50+ year-old business owners and participants making more than $145,000 that want additional tax deferral, the traditional catch-up will be available for another two years. After that time, catch-up contributions will still be available, and the catch-up will just need to be made as Roth.^[1]

Michael Garrison: How to Outperform

I enjoyed how Ben Carlson used the fishing industry in India to show how more information leads to more efficient markets, which he, in turn, related to the stock market.  While he notes that the stock market is not a perfectly efficient market, with all the readily available information out there for investors, it has been getting more difficult for managers to outperform.  He also points out that indexing doesn’t provide median returns. It actually provides top quartile returns over longer periods of time.

Kristopher Gutowski:  70% of college seniors with student debt say looming repayments will impact their career plans

I like this article because it discusses a major problem for the future of our economy. In a free-market economy, the “invisible hand” guides resources to where they are most useful. As younger generations continue to graduate saddled with school debt, they are unable to pursue their career dreams and financial goals, like home ownership and starting a family. If we don’t pay attention to this looming problem, we may seriously kneecap our future economic growth and further the growing income and wealth divide. Anything that affects the consumer’s ability to consume reduces the economy’s ability to grow.

Mike Karmin: Seasonal Weakness

In this article, Michael Batnick shows that the month of September was the worst-performing month for public equities so far this year.  Interestingly, the month of September has also been the worst-performing month on average for the S&P 500, dating back almost 100 years.  To me, this is more of a cocktail party fact than data that’s going to cause me to change my investment plan, but nonetheless, it’s certainly interesting. And because I’m a glass-half-full investor, here’s one other fact that I enjoyed: The fourth quarter has delivered stronger returns on average, going back almost 100 years than any other quarter.

Eric O’Brien: New Roth 401(k) Contributions Rule Delayed by IRS: What To Know & IRS Delays IRA RMD Rules Again

The passage of the SECURE Act and SECURE Act 2.0 brought about a lot of changes to retirement accounts, along with a lot of confusion on the new rules.  These articles highlight some of the confusion (and unpreparedness) with the IRS announcing delays, with more clarity to come in the next couple of years.   

Michael Tuber: Why the shrinking personal saving rate is… a good sign?

A common question I continue to get: Are we not in a recession today because people are burning through savings built up during the pandemic?  While the data does support the narrative that Americans are depleting their savings, this article does a great job of asking if the conclusion coming from this data is correct.  Historically, there has not been a correlation between a declining savings rate and a weakening economy.  Time will tell, but this proves again that we shouldn’t necessarily judge a book by its cover.

Conclusion:

We look forward to sharing more articles with you in the future. In the meantime, if you’d like to discuss how the topics in these pieces may apply to your own portfolio, please do not hesitate to reach out to a member of our team.

^[1] IRS, Guidance on Section 603 of the SECURE 2.0 Act with Respect to Catch-Up Contributions Link

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