Category

Investment Management

Like a ROTH to a Flame

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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 […]

The “Cash Trap”

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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%

Learning New Things @ Exchange

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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 […]

Net Unrealized Appreciation (NUA) – Worth It?

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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 […]

2023: In Review

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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

“Shaken, Not Stirred” – James Bond(s)

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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

CDs – Still Not a Good Long-Term Investment Strategy

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When a client has accumulated savings that they don’t plan to use in the near future, they often wonder what they should do with their money to make it work harder for them (aka grow more). One of the first questions we ask is, what is the likely timeframe for the money? If it’s less […]

A Tale of Two Markets

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We just got back from a quick trip to the beach.  Melanie had wanted to take her good friends to the beach, and they had a wonderful time making memories as they close out their junior year of high school together. (Melanie’s version) While their trip was filled with sleeping in, surfing, strolling the beach…our

The Conversation Hasn’t Changed

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We have been very fortunate to add some wonderful people to our team since starting Meridian in 2015 (!), and as they advance their careers and knowledge base, they have started to enter the regular blog rotation (shout out to Kira Topeka for next week!). It is nice to not only add their expertise and […]