Capital gains taxes are a consideration when buying and ultimately selling assets. For this post, we will focus on stocks, but capital gains taxes apply to real estate and other assets as well. Put simply: you buy a stock, it increases in price, and you sell it at a higher price. The difference between your […]

We’ve been receiving a lot of questions about paying off mortgages or using cash to buy real estate…Nathan covered the question of whether to purchase a home with cash (or use cash for a larger down payment) in his Meridian Market Minute, so this blog post is about using cash or investments to pay off […]

In the spirit of the recent St. Patrick’s Day holiday, luck has been on my mind as to how it affects our financial journey both through financial planning and investment management. Luck is defined as success or failure brought by chance rather than through one’s actions with a reasonable expectation that a

I apologize for the lame title to this post, but it seemed a little more attention grabbing than ‘help your kid open a ROTH IRA.’ If you have a child who is earning income, he is eligible to open a ROTH IRA (in Virginia, the minimum working age is 14), and you should probably help […]

With the Federal Reserve’s campaign to tame inflation pushing short term interest rates higher, cash yields have become more and more enticing.  Frankly, we’ve never bought more CDs and Treasury bonds for our clients than over the past year.  It’s been a welcome sight to see Treasury and cash yields in the 5%

Yes, finding an excuse to go to a conference in Miami in February is generally a good idea. As is the case with most events like these, we are still spending the lion’s share of our time inside conference rooms, but it’s still a great location for this time of year. The annual Exchange conference […]

Happy New Year to you and your families! That is, if it is still appropriate to wish people a Happy New Year this far into January. I always enjoy the debate around how far into the year you can still say that. I tend to land on through the end of January. I think Seinfeld […]

At Meridian, we are putting the finishing touches on our year-end letter that is included with our annual client statements.  While 2023 was a crazy year of news, the stock market had one main story…“The Magnificent 7.” The S&P 500 was up 24% in 2023, but most of the growth was concentrated in seven

Bonds have been grabbing a lot of headlines, lately. Up until recently, all of those headlines were generally bad and involved declining (shaken AND stirred?) prices. It has been a frustrating last year and a half for conservative bond investors not used to seeing their account values fluctuate. However, behind the