Author: Steve Booren

There are few transitions in life more profound than moving from “we” to “me.” Sometimes it happens suddenly, as with the passing of a spouse. Other times it unfolds through the long and often painful process of divorce. In either case, the change is emotional, financial, and deeply personal. A life planned for two must…

For many, retirement is an imagined finish line. A date circled on the calendar. A number on a statement. A moment when the alarm clock turns off for good and life finally begins to slow down. Every day becomes a Saturday! And then it arrives. The meetings stop, the routine disappears and the structure that…

SPONSORED FEATURE Most investors think about taxes once per year. April arrives, documents are gathered, numbers are calculated and a return is filed. Then, for a while at least, taxes fade into the background. But even before you file that return, several factors have likely influenced your tax outcome, potentially in significant ways. The most…

There comes a season of life when the questions change. Somewhere around age 62 — about the time many people begin thinking seriously about retirement — the focus shifts. The conversation moves from accumulation to preservation, from maximizing growth to ensuring durability. The question is no longer, “How much can I build?” but rather, “Will…

Early in each year, I like to refocus on what actually drives long-term investment success. The highest returns aren’t from correctly guessing what the market will do, and they certainly don’t come to investors who react to the day’s loudest headline. The biggest success determinant has nothing to do with cleverness or timing. Instead, it…

I meet monthly with thoughtful, experienced investors who genuinely seek the best decisions. Despite any savviness, however, they often fall prey to a similar mental trap: anchoring. It’s not one of ignorance but of human nature. Anchoring is the tendency to grab onto a familiar price, memory or belief and let it shape decisions long…

Every investor I’ve met has, at some point, asked a version of this question: “Given what’s going on right now, what should I do?”   As a financial advisor, I always consider this a reasonable thought. The world is unpredictable: Wars flare up, elections divide, inflation gets sticky, interest rates go up and down, markets…

Toward the end of the Cold War, a new kind of landscape emerged — defined by turbulence, ambiguity and interconnection. In that moment, folks at the U.S. Army War College coined the term VUCA, an acronym for Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity. It succinctly captured the essence of a post-Cold-War world long before it became a business buzzword.…