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ICW Journal

Perspectives help cultivate ways of thinking about and understanding things and sightlines help develop clarity about what lies ahead.

These helpful primers, books and blogs can help you think about situations and problems in more wise and reasonable ways. They can help you develop longer-term perspectives and sightlines to withstand the shifting winds of short-term thinking. They can help you bypass  camouflaging distractions and help you stay focused on the key issues that matter most to the long-term success of your plan.

IT’S JUST PART OF WHAT WE DO.

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designed to maximize your life.

Focus on what’s important.

We help you develop and maintain perspectives and sightlines to your plan.

CONSIDER EVERYTHING

ICW Journal | Perspective and Sightlines

Perspectives help cultivate ways of thinking about and understanding things and sightlines help develop clarity about what lies ahead.

These helpful primers, books and blogs can help you think about situations and problems in more wise and reasonable ways. They can help you develop longer-term perspectives and sightlines to withstand the shifting winds of short-term thinking. They can help you bypass  camouflaging distractions and help you stay focused on the key issues that matter most to the long-term success of your plan.

It's just part of what we do.

We help you develop and maintain perspectives and sightlines to your plan.

ICW Papers | Perspective and Sightlines

Financial markets have felt more fragile recently with investors concerned about the economy, the possibility that the Fed may be behind on …

Financial markets have felt more fragile recently with investors concerned about the economy, the possibility that the Fed may be behind on …

Financial markets have felt more fragile recently with investors concerned about the economy, the possibility that the Fed may be behind on …

Financial markets have felt more fragile recently with investors concerned about the economy, the possibility that the Fed may be behind on …

The Magnificent 7 and Valuations

Financial markets have felt more fragile recently with investors concerned about the economy, the possibility that the Fed may be behind on cutting rates, and some disappointing tech earnings. Ironically, despite the market volatility last week, major indices were mostly unchanged from Monday to Friday. While they are down from their recent all-time highs,

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Carry Trades and Market Fragility

Financial markets have felt more fragile recently with investors concerned about the economy, the possibility that the Fed may be behind on cutting rates, and some disappointing tech earnings. Ironically, despite the market volatility last week, major indices were mostly unchanged from Monday to Friday. While they are down from their recent all-time highs,

Continue Reading

Corporate Earnings and the Market Rebound

Financial markets have felt more fragile recently with investors concerned about the economy, the possibility that the Fed may be behind on cutting rates, and some disappointing tech earnings. Ironically, despite the market volatility last week, major indices were mostly unchanged from Monday to Friday. While they are down from their recent all-time highs,

Continue Reading

Q4 2024 Market Update Webinar

Financial markets have felt more fragile recently with investors concerned about the economy, the possibility that the Fed may be behind on cutting rates, and some disappointing tech earnings. Ironically, despite the market volatility last week, major indices were mostly unchanged from Monday to Friday. While they are down from their recent all-time highs,

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Measuring What Matters Most

Have you been measuring what matters most to your future financial success, or have you been focusing on the market’s day-to-day gyrations over the past several months? If you’ve been focusing on the market, you’re not alone. Like the crowd at a tennis match, investors have been looking back and forth, one moment at a

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Investment Behavioral Mistakes

Much has been written about investment behavioral mistakes and whether financial advisors can help clients generate market-beating investment outperformance. Amid all of the activity that investors and their advisors pursue in hopeful expectations of outperforming the market, it’s easy to overlook the risk that those activities might create below-market returns. Underperformance can easily come from

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The Value of Long Term Investing

When building wealth for the long term, your goal should be long term investing ‒ time in the market versus timing the market. This view represents the difference between being a long-term owner and a short-term renter (of stocks). If you can only take one investing axiom to heart, this might be the one. Moving

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Quantifying a Financial Advisor’s Value

Quantifying a financial advisor’s value has become easier in recent years as financial services firms have undertaken and completed studies on the matter.  Firms such as Vanguard, Morningstar, Dalbar and most recently Russell Investments, have added to the body of knowledge on this topic. The significant global changes of the past 24 months have prompted

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The Greatest Risk to Retirement Success?

Shortfall Risk is the Greatest Risk to Retirement Success The greatest risk to retirement success? For most of us, it’s shortfall risk ‒ the chance that our savings will expire before we do. Shortfall risk typically arises from one or both of these shortcomings: (1) not taking the time and doing the work to study

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Retirement Distribution Planning

Retirement Distribution Planning May Help Minimize Your Overall Tax Expenses If you’ve diligently saved and invested throughout your working years, congratulations! You’re on your way to funding a more comfortable retirement. But when you finally do stop working, you’ll face a new challenge: Making sure that your assets last as long as possible. One way

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Measuring What Matters Most

Have you been measuring what matters most to your future financial success, or have you been focusing on the market’s day-to-day gyrations over the past several months? If you’ve been focusing on the market, you’re not alone. Like the crowd at a tennis match, investors have been looking back and forth, one moment at a market selloff, the next at a market rally. And that makes this a perfect moment to discuss an investing truth. What you measure matters. Measuring what matters most is your plan. Are you focusing on the true purpose of your saving and investing endeavors – achieving your financial goals? Or are you caught in the moment, looking back and forth, succumbing to the temptation of trying to figure out when to get out of the market, and then, when to get back in? Those who have a plan know what their goals are, and it’s not to venture guesses at timing the market. Those who have a plan measure their success in terms of achieving their goals with the least risk. What gets measured gets discussed. Measuring what matters most is your plan. Reflect on your discussions. Do they focus on how well your investment

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Investment Behavioral Mistakes

Much has been written about investment behavioral mistakes and whether financial advisors can help clients generate market-beating investment outperformance. Amid all of the activity that investors and their advisors pursue in hopeful expectations of outperforming the market, it’s easy to overlook the risk that those activities might create below-market returns. Underperformance can easily come from the unnecessary losses that investors suffer through counterproductive financial and economic behaviors. Investment Behavioral Mistakes Lead to Investment Underperformance Underperformance related to investment behaviors can have a far greater negative influence on your investment outcome than the potential and typically smaller positive outperformance that may materialize from your investment manager(s). While we can’t control the performance of the market or an investment manager, we do have control over our behaviors that may lead to returns worse than the market. Investors can contribute to the creation or destruction of their wealth in the markets, and a preponderance of evidence suggests that the average investor destroys it through suboptimal investing behaviors. Independent studies continue to show that the average mutual fund investor earns returns lower than the returns of the funds in which they are invested and the returns of the market. The difference in the results

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The Value of Long Term Investing

When building wealth for the long term, your goal should be long term investing ‒ time in the market versus timing the market. This view represents the difference between being a long-term owner and a short-term renter (of stocks). If you can only take one investing axiom to heart, this might be the one. Moving Off Your Long Term Plan Can Help Destroy the Value of Long Term Investing Moving in and out of the market ‒ as many may have experienced ‒ can be a reactive and emotionally nerve-racking approach. When opportunity seems to beckon, many market participants jump off the sidelines and move their cash into the market in hot pursuit. Similarly, when the market is volatile, falling or otherwise scary, many of the same market participants flee, selling their investments and moving their cash back to the sidelines. There are many risks of moving in and out of the market instead of staying put . . . selling low what you previously bought high, compounding that mistake multiple times, identifying the right company to invest in and getting the timing wrong, missing the opportunity to reinvest your dividends and accelerate the compounding of your returns, reducing your

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Q4 2024 Market Update Webinar

Financial markets have felt more fragile recently with investors concerned about the economy, the possibility that the Fed may be behind on cutting rates, and some disappointing tech earnings. Ironically, despite the market volatility last week, major indices were mostly unchanged from Monday to Friday. While they are down from their recent all-time highs,

Continue Reading

Corporate Earnings and the Market Rebound

Financial markets have felt more fragile recently with investors concerned about the economy, the possibility that the Fed may be behind on cutting rates, and some disappointing tech earnings. Ironically, despite the market volatility last week, major indices were mostly unchanged from Monday to Friday. While they are down from their recent all-time highs,

Continue Reading

Carry Trades and Market Fragility

Financial markets have felt more fragile recently with investors concerned about the economy, the possibility that the Fed may be behind on cutting rates, and some disappointing tech earnings. Ironically, despite the market volatility last week, major indices were mostly unchanged from Monday to Friday. While they are down from their recent all-time highs,

Continue Reading