4th Quarter Investment Planning Outlook
Investment Planning Amar Shah Investment Planning Amar Shah

4th Quarter Investment Planning Outlook

Before diving into the 4th quarter outlook, let's emphasize the importance of building a robust investment portfolio that guards against various risks. Our strategy actively addresses risks such as equity, interest rates, currency fluctuations, liquidity, credit, inflation, foreign investments, time horizons, and economic downturns.

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Mastering High Net Worth Financial Planning: The Unique Challenges of Wealth

Mastering High Net Worth Financial Planning: The Unique Challenges of Wealth

In today's ever-evolving financial landscape, the importance of financial planning cannot be overstated. It serves as a cornerstone for safeguarding one's financial well-being against life's uncertainties. However, for individuals and families with substantial wealth and complex financial needs, standard financial planning often falls short. This is where High Net Worth Financial Planning steps in to offer tailored solutions.

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Navigating The Debt Ceiling Crisis
Investment Planning, Estate Planning Amar Shah, CFA, CFP® Founder & CIO, Client First Capital Investment Planning, Estate Planning Amar Shah, CFA, CFP® Founder & CIO, Client First Capital

Navigating The Debt Ceiling Crisis

Global monetary policy hinges on the value of a risk-free asset plus a premium, and for years, US Treasuries have played this role effectively. Treasured for their liquidity and safety, they have served as collateral in countless global trade transactions.

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Navigating Q2 2023: Investment Planning in a Shifting Economic Landscape
Investment Planning Amar Shah, CFA, CFP® Founder & CIO, Client First Capital Investment Planning Amar Shah, CFA, CFP® Founder & CIO, Client First Capital

Navigating Q2 2023: Investment Planning in a Shifting Economic Landscape

Key takeaways:

1. Reiterating: Profit-based recession is likely with major credit events

2. Reiterating: Risk of recession > risk of inflation

3. Reiterating: Fed pivot unlikely

It’s been an eventful start to this year. We have already had the 2nd and 3rd largest bank collapses of all time. The CPI calculation has changed for the first time in years. Mortgage rates hit 7.1% for the first time since 1993, and we are only three months into 2023. It’s only April and 2023 is already a year that will be remembered.

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Top 3 Retirement Planning Lessons from Silicon Valley Bank
Investment Planning, Tax Planning Amar Shah, CFA, CFP® Founder & CIO, Client First Capital Investment Planning, Tax Planning Amar Shah, CFA, CFP® Founder & CIO, Client First Capital

Top 3 Retirement Planning Lessons from Silicon Valley Bank

Well, it’s hard to hide from the news of the Fed and Treasury coming to the rescue of depositors of a failing bank. Silicon Valley Bank is the 20th largest bank in the United States of America and mainly serves the needs of startups and venture capital firms. And because of mismanaged risk and the inability to create liquidity when needed, the bank was taken over by regulators from the FDIC last Friday. This article covers the events that led to the failure of the bank and broader impacts as well as lessons learned from these series of events that can be applied to managing retirement.

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Tax Planning for a Smart Retirement - The Top 5 Accounts
Tax Planning, Investment Planning Amar Shah, CFA, CFP® Founder & CIO, Client First Capital Tax Planning, Investment Planning Amar Shah, CFA, CFP® Founder & CIO, Client First Capital

Tax Planning for a Smart Retirement - The Top 5 Accounts

In the world of retirement planning, it's not just about saving for your golden years; it's about saving intelligently. The key to ensuring a tax-efficient retirement lies in understanding the various types of accounts at your disposal.

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Potential for a Prolonged Recession and Implications for Investment Planning 
Investment Planning Amar Shah, CFA, CFP® Founder & CIO, Client First Capital Investment Planning Amar Shah, CFA, CFP® Founder & CIO, Client First Capital

Potential for a Prolonged Recession and Implications for Investment Planning 

In this ever-changing economic landscape, the need for sound investment planning is more crucial than ever. This article delves into the potential for a prolonged recession and its implications for your investment strategy. We will explore key economic indicators and strategies to safeguard your financial future.

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Avoiding Poor Financial Decisions in Retirement – 5 Trends Retirees Should Avoid
Estate Planning, Investment Planning Amar Shah, CFA, CFP® Founder & CIO, Client First Capital Estate Planning, Investment Planning Amar Shah, CFA, CFP® Founder & CIO, Client First Capital

Avoiding Poor Financial Decisions in Retirement – 5 Trends Retirees Should Avoid

This article covers some patterns and behaviors that may result in poor financial decisions and reduce the overall probability of achieving goals during retirement, such as enjoyment, flexibility, and control.

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Market Commentary; The Persistence of Volatility
Investment Planning Amar Shah, CFA, CFP® Founder & CIO, Client First Capital Investment Planning Amar Shah, CFA, CFP® Founder & CIO, Client First Capital

Market Commentary; The Persistence of Volatility

In this month’s newsletter, I hope to address key parts of our investment strategy, as well as highlight some definite wins and some areas that are still challenging. Seeing losses for the first time in the last 6 years can be challenging. Rest assured that our risk management process is helping to limit those losses.

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Staying Focused During Times of Conflict
Estate Planning, Investment Planning Loren Bailey, Senior Wealth Manager Estate Planning, Investment Planning Loren Bailey, Senior Wealth Manager

Staying Focused During Times of Conflict

When something “big” happens in the global universe, our natural tendency is to ask, “What happens next?” The markets ask the same question and they usually have an adverse initial reaction because the markets don’t like uncertainty. However, the ultimate effect on the marketplace may not be what you might think.

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Risk of Recession
Investment Planning Amar Shah, CFA, CFP® Founder & CIO, Client First Capital Investment Planning Amar Shah, CFA, CFP® Founder & CIO, Client First Capital

Risk of Recession

It’s normal to be concerned about your investments given the current situation of the world right now. Over the past few weeks, I have received a few questions around risk that I believe merit further exploration.

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Understanding Market Volatility
Investment Planning Tom Lawson, Director of Military Outreach Investment Planning Tom Lawson, Director of Military Outreach

Understanding Market Volatility

By understanding how volatility works, you can put yourself in a better position to understand the current stock market conditions as a whole, analyze the risk involved with any particular security, and construct a stock portfolio that is a great fit for your growth objectives and risk tolerance.

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The Long Game
Estate Planning, Investment Planning Loren Bailey, Senior Wealth Manager Estate Planning, Investment Planning Loren Bailey, Senior Wealth Manager

The Long Game

We all know that life can throw the unexpected at us…just look at the past few years for example…who could have predicted? You’ve reviewed your plan dozens of times and see nothing wrong. Then you read an article which stokes your concerns…one that states that 70% of people over age 65 will have some sort of disabling event that will require assistance of 2 months or longer.

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We are good for now…
Investment Planning Amar Shah, CFA, CFP® Founder & CIO, Client First Capital Investment Planning Amar Shah, CFA, CFP® Founder & CIO, Client First Capital

We are good for now…

As we head into 2022, it is hard to believe that we have been living with Covid for over two years. I hope we are starting a new chapter in the Covid story. Inflation still does not seem to be the hot conversation topic for investment news. We believe that we have started to hit the peak cycle in the rate of change with respect to inflation. The rate of change of inflation will start to decline but the absolute numbers will be high.

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Understanding Inflation
Investment Planning, Estate Planning Tom Lawson, Director of Military Outreach Investment Planning, Estate Planning Tom Lawson, Director of Military Outreach

Understanding Inflation

With the rise in prices, we thought a brief primer on inflation was warranted. The simple definition of inflation is the sustained upward movement in the overall price level of goods and services in an economy. The result of inflation is it takes more money to buy the same amount of goods and services than it did in the past.

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The Annuity Comeback
Investment Planning, Estate Planning Amar Shah, CFA, CFP® Founder & CIO, Client First Capital Investment Planning, Estate Planning Amar Shah, CFA, CFP® Founder & CIO, Client First Capital

The Annuity Comeback

On October 6, 2021, BlackRock announced that it would be introducing annuities as a built-in option within BlackRock’s 401(k) plans. I believe that this latest product introduction in defined contribution retirement savings plans is a huge shift in the retirement planning industry and a bellwether for the state of personal retirement savings plans for most Americans.

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Do You Believe in Inflation?
Investment Planning Amar Shah, CFA, CFP® Founder & CIO, Client First Capital Investment Planning Amar Shah, CFA, CFP® Founder & CIO, Client First Capital

Do You Believe in Inflation?

Week over week, the number of Covid infections from the Delta variant continues to drop, implying that there is a reasonable basis for supply chain and labor to restart the path to normalization. Current estimates anticipate that the global supply chain will normalize after March 2022. Yet, there are multiple problems that exist, including a backlog of ships offshore as well as port, trucking and warehouse capacity.

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Wash Sale Rules
Investment Planning Client First Capital Investment Planning Client First Capital

Wash Sale Rules

The following is a summary of a conversation with Amar Shah, CFA, CFP®, Founder & CIO, Client First Capital, and Kyle Lynch, CPA, Founder of Clover Hill CPA, about wash sales—what they are, and the rules that impact securities, crypto, and more.

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