Beacon Wealthcare

28 Apr 2017 Buying Happiness, Part 1: How Much Cash Should You Have?

Posted at 11:10h in The Friday Brief by Jared Korver, CPA, CFP®

You might be tempted to think, as I often am, that the business of money is fairly straightforward. Some spreadsheets here, some Monte Carlo testing over there, some budgeting along the way, and ding ding ding! There you have it: A wonderfully black and white sort of product with very little wiggle room for uncertainty, or, more to the point, humanity.

21 Apr 2017 Confessions of a Former Active Manager

Posted at 10:00h in The Friday Brief by Sam Bass Jr.

Just yesterday, following a conversation with a client, I experienced an all too familiar tug, not unlike the one an alcoholic might feel at a cocktail party, when the smell of alcohol is rich in the air and that drink is but an order away. During our conversation I learned that Amazon AMZN was now up 21% for the year so far. The broad stock market is up 5.7% by comparison

13 Apr 2017 Big News….We’re Moving!

Posted at 11:23h in The Friday Brief by Jared Korver, CPA, CFP®

We've got some big news to share with everyone...

07 Apr 2017 Six Ways to Use Your Tax Refund

Posted at 10:46h in The Friday Brief by Jared Korver, CPA, CFP®

Though I haven't worked on tax returns that aren't mine in quite some time, there is a very real part of my CPA brain that can't help thinking a lot about taxes this time of year. And one of the things I think about is...

31 Mar 2017 Are We Talking the Same Language?

Posted at 15:01h in The Friday Brief by Sam Bass Jr.

The financial services industry, like the medical industry, the marketing industry, and the automotive industry, all have their their unique shorthand terms and abbreviations that are clear to insiders, but confuse and obscure understanding for outsiders. It's called 'the curse of knowledge.' Jane Kennedy defines the curse of knowledge as "a cognitive bias that occurs when an individual, communicating with other individuals, unknowingly assumes that the others have the background to understand."

24 Mar 2017 The Danger of Not Knowing What You Don’t Know

Posted at 11:41h in The Friday Brief by Sam Bass Jr.

You just bought a new laptop and learned that its operating system doesn't run your most important software. Someone is going to get a very nice birthday present. You're stuck in traffic. After all your research and planning, you're going to miss your vacation flight.

17 Mar 2017 Legislation – It’s Back for Better or Worse

Posted at 12:23h in The Friday Brief by Sam Bass Jr.

This is how's it's done folks - legislation is actually happening. It's been so long since we've seen Congress work, no one; including the media, the talking heads, the guy in the street, even many congressmen and women, really know what to think or how to act.

10 Mar 2017 What are Jobs Telling Us?

Posted at 10:08h in The Friday Brief by Sam Bass Jr.

The US added 235,000 jobs in February, nearly 20% more than expected by economists. Unemployment fell to 4.7%, even as the number of Americans rejoining the workforce, measured by the labor participation rate, increased.

03 Mar 2017 How Does Your Investment Portfolio Compare to the Yale Endowment’s?

Posted at 14:08h in The Friday Brief by Jared Korver, CPA, CFP®

Two of the most important aspects of a good investment philosophy can be summed up by the following questions. 1) Is this strategy likely to work? 2) Will I be able to stick with this strategy for long periods of time throughout the inevitable ups and down of the stock market? At Beacon, we have a thoughtful, well-defined investment philosophy that we think answers both of the above questions in the affirmative.

24 Feb 2017 Thought Determines Behavior

Posted at 14:40h in The Friday Brief by Sam Bass Jr.

Socrates said that thought determines behavior, so it follows that if we want to improve our behavior, we should improve our thoughts. How do we do that? Our brain is the most powerful and complex organ in our body. It can accomplish wonderful things when we allow it to work naturally, as it is designed.

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