 |  Diva on a Divan | | Our Marketing Director decided to allocate a portion of our operating budget to expanding and enhancing our women's powder room because... Well, just because. | January - February 2023 Announcements, colorful commentary, and useful financial planning tidbits from John H. Robinson
| Happy 2023! Our first newsletter of the year is chock full of important and timely information and announcements. I implore all FPH clients to read more than just the latest updates from our Marketing Director. | ▪ We need your advance written authorization to share tax documents and other financial info with your CPA.Here is a link to JW Cole Compliance Department's 3rd Party Authorization form.
▪ Please do Not Communicate with Us Via Text. It is regulatory and compliance violation. There are services I could use that are compliant for texting, but but they are too much humbug. Call or email instead, please.
▪ Please do not send confidential information via unencrypted email. (No account numbers, birth dates, bank wiring instructions, social security numbers, etc.) If this sounds familiar, it is because I have issued this reminder a million times, and yet...
▪ Use this link to my calendar to schedule a planning review:
https://calendly.com/jrobinson-1
| ▪ | Please do Not Communicate with Us Via Text. It is regulatory and compliance violation. There are services I could use that are compliant for texting, but but they are too much humbug. Call or email instead, please. | | ▪ | Please do not send confidential information via unencrypted email. (No account numbers, birth dates, bank wiring instructions, social security numbers, etc.) If this sounds familiar, it is because I have issued this reminder a million times, and yet... | See Also - I am not Your Dentist | Enjoy the Golden Future... My "Irreverent State of the Investment World Address" casts 2022 in a decidedly different and more positive light than most so-called investment industry thought leaders. In my view, 2022 blew off the speculative froth from the markets and, in conjunction with higher interest rates, sets the stage for what I believe may be a golden era for investing. READ MORE... | Pick the Low-Hanging Fruit...Trillions of dollars are sitting in low/no-interest savings and checking accounts and brokerage sweep funds. Putting this money to work may be an easy way to boost portfolio returns without taking on more risk. READ MORE... | Hooray for Tax Season! … said no one ever. While we cannot make the unpleasantness of completing and filing your tax returns go away, we can at least keep you informed and educated about tax reporting issues and tax law changes that may pertain to your investment accounts. For updates on the status of your 1099s, guidance on processing RMDs, and other timely tax-planning tidbits. READ MORE... | Bye-Bye NFS. Hello Charles Schwab...We are officially advising all FPH clients who maintain accounts on Fidelity's National Financial Services (NFS) platform transfer their accounts to the Schwab/TD Ameritrade platform. READ MORE... | What Would Happen if the U.S. Defaults on Its Debt Obligations... To borrow a line from Dr. Egon Spengler in the 1980s comedy classic, Ghost Busters, “It would be bad.” READ MORE... | There are a Zillion New Tax Rules, Some of Which are Relevant to YOU!... In addition to the usual inflation index updates The SECURE Act 2.0, which was signed into law in December 2022, brought a slew of new tax rules. I have written a summary of the ones that seem most germane to the FPH flock. READ MORE... | Should you accept the Genworth Long Term Care Settlement Offer? RE: Halcolm & Skochin Settlements... The Genworth LTC class action law firms are not necessarily saviors for policyholders. With respect to the Genworth LTC Insurance settlements, one might even conclude that the plaintiffs' attorneys' interests may be more aligned with Genworth. READ MORE... See Also: Genworth Executives Review Long Term Care Rate Hike Settlements. | Every FPH client who owns Savings Bonds Should Do These 6 Things (1) Make sure there is a beneficiary form associated with your savings bonds. (2) Upload all savings bond beneficiary documentation to the "Beneficiaries" folder in your eMoney Vault (3) Link your Treasury Direct account in eMoney so the value automatically updates. (4) If you still hold paper savings bonds, manually add them in the eMoney Organizer so they show up on your balance sheet and net worth statements. (5) Make copies of all paper certificates and upload them to the eMoney vault. (6) If you have savings bonds held in book-entry form in your TreasuryDirect.com account, link your account in eMoney so that the values may be updated each day. | This segment is devoted to educating FPH clients about important financial planning concepts through the sharing of timely articles. | Why We Love (Qualified) Dividends as a Source of Passive Income... FPH clients probably know we are big proponents of direct indexing using companies that not only pay qualified dividends but have a penchant for raising their dividends each year. One of the unsung benefits of this strategy is that qualified dividends are taxed at a lower federal income tax rate than ordinary income (including taxable interest income). Here is a recent article from Motley Fool that explains this advantage in greater detail - Dividend Tax Rates in 2023 (Motley Fool) | The Top 10 Mistakes People Make When Planning for Retirement (MarketWatch) I am a financial planner and I agree with all the mistakes cited in the article except #10. In my experience, investors are far too conservative in their asset allocations at retirement. In fact, I believe the financial services industry and especially the insurance industry have done a great disservice to consumers by telling them they should shift their retirement savings into "conservative" bond mutual funds and/or target date mutual funds as they approach retirement. Such guidance dramatically understates the risk of bond funds in a rising rate environment and millions of consumers paid a high price for that guidance in 2022. There are fundamental reasons why the stock market, despite its near-term volatility, tends to rise over time and produce real returns that are usually better than bonds/cash. When planning for a 20-30 year retirement horizon, stocks need to receive a healthy allocation to help consumers keep pace with inflation. Conversely, consumers need to be aware that the returns in bond funds over the past 40-year period of declining interest rates are not repeatable. | Why Investors Should Remember Past Investment Manias..Remember when Cannabis investing was all the rage? From around 2016 through early 2019, weed ruled. Any company that had anything to do with growing or distributing marijuana or CBD-related products was hotter than a $2 pistol. As the article below describes, fast forward to 2023 and the trend has gone to pot. Cannabis chain once worth $1.7 billion and called the ‘Apple store of weed’ is now nearly failing as the once-hot pot industry faces a major reckoning (Fortune) I included this in the "Good Reads" section of our newsletter because we will do well to remember how "can't miss" investment themes usually end. At this time, we are in the midst of what I believe is the beginning of the end of the Crypto-Craze and the demise of the over-hyped, VC-funded app stock "Unicorns." Before that, there was the Dotcom Bubble. Way before that there was the Tulip Bulb Mania. These are all worth remembering because resisting the Sirens' song of easy riches is a key to successful long-term investing. Boring-But- Profitable is an investment theme that never goes out of style. | Apropos of Nothing Curious, sometimes humorous snippets of daily life that may or may not have anything to do with financial planning. | Local Grinds...Our Marketing Director moonlights as a restaurant critic. She recently awarded her coveted Five-Shaka rating to Cafe Morey's for their Honu-cakes. (Honu is the Hawaiian word for sea turtle.) | And the prize for Best 2023 Superbowl Commerical Goes to ... Even though my hometown of Williamstown, MA is nearly a three-hour drive away, I have always loved Boston. The Celtics and "Sawx"(Red Sox) are my favorite sports teams. Good Will Hunting is my favorite movie (Favorite scene: Ben Affleck's "RETAINER"). The city has a rich history, fabulous arts & culture, great lobster, clams, and clam chowder (a shout out to Legal Seafoods), and, of course, its unique rough-around-the-edges personality (one would not necessarily describe Boston as a friendly city.) Boston's "Chowda-head" charm was on full display in this instant-classic Sam Adams Superbowl commercial yesterday - VIDEO - Your Cousin's Brighter Boston Second Prize Goes to Canton, MA-based Dunkin' Donuts for its Superbowl ad featuring celebrity guest-worker and Beantown icon, Ben Affleck - VIDEO - A Dunkin' Superbowl | Aloha,
John H. Robinson
Financial Planning Hawaii
677 Ala Moana Blvd, Suite 605
Honolulu, HI 96813
(808)564-0654 or jr@fphawaii.com
www.fphawaii.com | Securities offered through J.W. Cole Financial, Inc. (JWC) member FINRA/SIPC. Advisory services offered through Financial Planning Hawaii and J.W. Cole Advisors, Inc. (JWCA). Financial Planning Hawaii and JWC/JWCA are unaffiliated entities. Fee-only financial planning services are provided through Financial Planning Hawaii, Inc, a separate Registered Investment Advisory firm. Financial Planning Hawaii does not take custody of client assets nor do its advisers take discretionary authority over client accounts. The information contained herein is general in nature. Neither Financial Planning Hawaii nor J.W. Cole provides client-specific tax or legal advice. All readers should consult with their tax and/or legal advisors for such guidance in advance of making investment or financial planning decisions with tax or legal implications. | | |
