The air is crisp and we are heading toward the end of the year, a busy time here at GFP and surely in your household as well. What’s on your to-do list? Perhaps it’s home maintenance projects. Are your gutters ready for the rain? Or maybe you’re thinking of planting bulbs to cheer you up in the spring? Or maybe your kids/grandkids need cash for the holidays, or you’ve got big trips planned this winter. There are plenty of things vying for your money this time of year. If you have any concerns or questions, or just want reassurance that you’re being a good steward of your money, don’t hesitate to reach out. We are here to help!
If you’re among the 25% of our clients who haven’t scheduled a mid-year investment call, what are you waiting for? We encourage you to take advantage of this service and check in with us on your investments and all that goes into managing your money. We want to find the best balance for you between getting the returns you need for the future and keeping a lid on risk, especially with a market correction looming. Based on our conversation, we will develop an Investment Policy Statement to help us better manage your portfolio. Schedule this call today using our online tool!
To finish out 2019, we will be turning our attention to tax projections, getting you the information you need for year-end tax decisions and steps for positioning yourself most optimally for April 15th. We will email you with instructions for uploading a copy of your 2018 tax return to the Vault in eMoney (our new client portal) if we do not have your tax return on file. Be on the lookout for a projections report generated by our new tax software, and we would be happy to discuss these observations in more detail if you have any questions or would just like to go through it with Debbie.
We will be taking time at the end of the year to refine our internal processes and complete our own end-of-year tasks. Because of this we will have limited availability for client meetings until 2020. Be sure to use the online scheduling tool to snag the few remaining meeting slots if your to-do list includes talking with Debbie before the end of the year. Otherwise, please contact Debbie directly if you have any urgent matters to discuss.
Our investment fund of the month is the Dimensional International Small Company mutual fund (DFISX), which we introduced to our models this fall allocating up to 5% in some portfolios. Academic research led by Nobel Laureates Fama and French has proven that small companies with fewer assets actually have higher returns than their large counterparts. This fund is designed to capture those returns. Dimensional is constantly analyzing 85,000 points of data for each stock implementing thoughtful strategies and trading practices. We find it to be a solid fund manager that we confidently allocate your hard-earned money to.