A couple of months back I wrote a post about several things I don’t do when working with clients. I talked about avoiding using leverage, not buying private investments, and not letting third parties handle client portfolios. While making choices about what not to do is a foundational part of business, deciding what we actually do is obviously more important.   So, here are some of the things I do when working with clients.     The basic stuff……

The third quarter of 2026 (Q3) was solid for US stocks while it seemed like other asset classes could only go down. Some positive trends continued during the quarter and lifted portions of the stock market and economy. But negative trends like the Iran War’s impact on oil prices, bad breadth in the stock market, and interest rates continued to weigh on markets, especially bonds which saw their worst September in years. All told, diversification helped “moderate” po…

Before we talk about bonds, Schwab has received reports matching up with one of my posts from earlier this summer about how fraudsters are leveraging AI to make it easier to rip you off. The idea is you’re contacted by someone purporting to be a Schwab employee who needs to verify suspicious transactions within your accounts. They have some information about you gleaned from the internet and maybe an authentic-looking website. You’re asked to confirm login credenti…

I spent most of last week at a conference in Denver so, if you’ll indulge me, I’ll share some of the details with you. This conference was the Insider’s Forum that has for years been hosted by a long-time thought leader in the planning industry. One of the draws for this conference is how different it is from others I’ve attended. More typical conferences seem full of actively managed mutual fund providers and insurance companies touting their product enhancements…

It’s good to be back after my summer blog break. I’ve otherwise been hard at work and there were at least a couple of times when I thought I’d have to break my break, so to speak, because there was so much going on. Along those lines, let’s review some of the developments over the past several weeks, talk about expectations and what, if anything, to do about them. The stock and bond markets encountered some headwinds in recent weeks. The main issues impacting bot…

Before I begin, this will be my last post for a few weeks. I’ll still be working on everything else, just not writing this blog so that I have some extra time with family and friends during what remains of summer. I’ve probably mentioned this several times in the past but part of what I do for clients is, in a sense, dominated by what I don’t do. I remember the advice of a colleague when I was just starting out – the first rule, he said, was don’t blow anybody up…