For decades, the S&P 500 has been held up as the gold standard of diversification. It’s the index that financial advisors recommend for beginners, the benchmark professionals use to measure performance, and the foundation of countless retirement portfolios. The idea is simple: by owning the 500 largest publicly

We have friends who have lived in London for the past few years, and we have enjoyed visiting them over the last few years. While there, we took the London Underground frequently, and our kids found the announcements to “mind the gap” entertaining. A very little Ethan and Ben at their first Tube stop Me […]

To convert or not to convert – pay the tax now or pay them later? These are just a few questions many investors are asking themselves and for good reason. Converting part of a traditional IRA into a Roth IRA means you pay income tax now in exchange for tax-free growth and tax-free qualified withdrawals […]

When it comes to personal finance, setting goals is one of the most effective ways to ensure financial stability and growth. However, it’s important to understand that not all financial goals are created equal. Financial goals can be divided into two broad categories: short-term goals and long-term goals. Both

I was lucky growing up, in that my dad would bring me alongside him and try to explain to me how investments worked. He opened an account for me and helped me get started at a young age. I will admit, I was much more confused than I was letting on, but that little bit […]

Hartford Funds recently put out a great article called The Price of Panic which we found a helpful read. They partner with MIT AgeLab who researches a lot around the psychology of investing and investor behavior. We found it helpful and hope you do too. Download the article. The team here at Meridian is available to

While 2025 has been full of surprises, the double-digit outperformance of international stocks over United States stocks was on very few economists’ bingo cards for this year! Following another strong year of outperformance in the US economic growth and market returns, non-U.S. equity markets have overtaken US

The last few weeks have felt like total chaos—at home, our routine schedule has been upended with weather-related school cancellations, kids with the flu, and late nights of basketball games. At Meridian, we’ve been working hard on the usual year end reporting and tax preparation tasks, as well as rebalancing

Happy 2025 y’all! This is my first official blog of the year, and I am starting to prefer the 1-minute video format (the Meridian Market Minute)! There will be one that accompanies this post. Nonetheless, I will write about a topic that has been on some of our clients’ minds recently: December 2024 statements!