IFP Insights

Over a ten-year period, index ETFs outperform something like 95% of investments. And direct indexes outperform index ETFs (on an expected after-tax basis).

Personal Index Portfolios combine the best features of low-cost indexing, active tax management, and the inclusion of your environmental, social, and faith-based views.

Understanding tax management, how it works, and how to implement it into your investment strategy is so important. This post will examine how we use tax management to impact your portfolio.

This year, celebrate Earth Day by looking at your portfolio and determining if ESG investing is suitable for you and your values.

Tax-loss harvesting is a process that involves deliberately selling securities at a loss in order to offset your earnings from other securities, thereby potentially reducing your tax burden. In other words, if you have an investment that’s lost value, you can sell it and deduct the value of that loss from the gains you realize elsewhere. That deduction lowers your total taxable income for the year, which may result in tax savings.

Have you ever wondered how to apply March Madness to your financial well-being? There may be parallels between your bracket selection and investing.

For years, values and investing were viewed as separate disciplines. Not anymore. That’s why it has become increasingly common for investors to incorporate their values into their overall planning.

Most people are comfortable getting second opinions on major decisions. Your investment portfolio should be no different.

If you are an investor and only tax loss-harvest at year-end, you miss the opportunity to loss-harvest mid-year dips. This matters. A lot. Recent studies estimate that year-round tax loss harvesting is significantly more effective than year-end loss harvesting, potentially as much as 2.7x more.

Since the S&P 500 represents a large portion of the value of the U.S. equity market, it may be worth understanding.