Takeaways from the above: more than half of American households own no stock roughly 1/3 maintain indirect ownership and with the rise in passive strategies (i.e. indexing) have endowed giants like Vanguard with enormous voting power over corporations Now consider the following: 60% of American families combined own less than 2% of stock wealth [...]
Both the House and Senate passed Bills to reform the Internal Revenue Code. Here's how they stack up as they had into the reconciliation process:
It’s a poor joke but it seems appropriate given data released yesterday by the Hartford Funds. A decade after the deep financial crisis the majority of survey respondents said there was no impact upon their lives. Really? Wow! And yet... 42% of respondents reported that they avoid investing in financial markets 46% have altered their [...]
Yesterday members of the House of Representatives announced their version of income tax reform. The Senate is expected to offer its own version as early as next week. Assuming each passes without changes (and that’s a big assumption) there will still likely be changes as the legislation moves through the reconciliation process before being presented [...]
The Internal Revenue Service has announced the annual inflation adjustments for a number of tax-related provisions. Assuming no changes as a result of the ongoing tax reform debate these are the numbers and tables that will matter come Jan 1st. Individual income tax brackets will remain at 10%, 15%, 25%, 28%, 33%, 35% and 39.6%. [...]
Much is being made of the Administration’s tax reform proposals. It’s the usual politicized rhetoric. Democrats argue it’s a tax cut for the rich. Republicans argue a small percentage of taxpayers pay a large percentage of taxes so, logically, the largest portion of a tax cut will benefit those paying the most taxes. Been there, [...]
Should a financial relationship be about doing what’s right or feeling good? The former, right? Not so fast. A survey by index zealots DFA found the #1 thing valued in receiving financial guidance is a “sense of security / peace of mind.” Not that that’s a bad thing of course but at 35% of respondents [...]
As companies shift away from defined-benefit retirement plans (i.e. we’ll pay you $x per year for the rest of your life) towards defined-contribution plans (i.e. you contribute x% per year) an inducement for employee participation is the company match. It’s that free money 100% ROR of which we’d be foolish not to take advantage. One [...]
A couple of significant changes in the mortgage market go into effect this month. Borrowers will see a bump in their FICO scores due to the removal of certain liens and judgments. This is not a market-based change but a response to legal action. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are increasing their debt-to-income ratio limit [...]
In April the average credit score reached 700 – the highest since 2005 when Fair Isaac (creator of widely used FICO credit scores that range from 300 to 850) began tracking the data. Meanwhile the share of consumers deemed to be riskiest (those with scores below 600) hit a new low of 20% of U.S. [...]