William F. Davis, CFP®

Stocks are at record highs and your bond funds are in the red. Here’s why that is less alarming than it looks.  William F. Davis, CFP® | Vericrest Private Wealth  If you opened your third-quarter statement and went looking for the weak link, you probably found it in about four seconds. Stocks are up double digits. Bonds are down.  The natural question is … Read more

William F. Davis, CFP® | Vericrest Private Wealth  On October 6, the S&P 500 closed at a record 7,818.93. If your portfolio looks anything like the market, you are probably sitting on some of the largest unrealized gains you have ever had. That is a good problem to have, and the tax code, being the tax code, has already figured out how to … Read more

William F. Davis, CFP® | Vericrest Private Wealth   You can split a brokerage account before lunch. Half the shares go one way, half go the other, and both sides walk away holding something worth exactly the same amount. A business doesn’t cooperate like that. Someone has to keep running it, someone else has to be made whole for the half that’s walking out the … Read more

Rate Hikes, a Weak Jobs Report, and a Market That Won’t Read the Room  By William F. Davis, CFP®  Happy October. The leaves are turning, and the Phillies’ season ended Thursday night the same way it’s ended the last four Octobers, a bullpen collapse in an elimination game. They had Atlanta on the ropes after … Read more

William F. Davis, CFP® | Vericrest Private Wealth  Every fall, some version of the same conversation happens at our office. A client wants to help pay for a grandchild’s college, or set money aside for a child who’s still in diapers, and the question is always framed the same way: should I open a 529?  It’s a fine question. It’s just not the only … Read more

William F. Davis, CFP® | Vericrest Private Wealth   For eight tax seasons, checking the box for the standard deduction without running any numbers was a perfectly reasonable move, even for clients doing quite well for themselves. The 2017 tax law capped state and local tax deductions at $10,000, which meant that for most people, property taxes alone used … Read more

What Wednesday’s hike means, what the Fed signaled about the rest of the year, and what history says happens next.  By William F. Davis, CFP®  What Happened Wednesday  On September 16, the Federal Reserve raised the federal funds rate by a quarter point, to a target range of 3.75% to 4.00%. The vote was unanimous, … Read more

September 2026  Print this one out and read it over Labor Day weekend. Seriously – pour some coffee, sit on the porch, and give it ten minutes. It’s worth it.  Quick primer before we dive in: Jackson Hole refers to the Kansas City Fed’s annual economic policy symposium, held every August in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. It’s where the Fed … Read more

A hawkish Fed chair, a nervous bond market, and a warning from Princeton about robots front-running the FOMC.  William F. Davis, CFP®, CDFA®  My family and I spent a week in Jackson Hole this month – elk antlers, Grand Tetons, the works. We missed the other gathering in town by about two weeks: the Kansas City Fed’s … Read more

What the research actually shows, not what the industry says  By William F. Davis, CFP®, CDFA®  If you’ve ever wondered whether paying someone to manage your money actually pays for itself, you’re asking the right question. It’s the same question I ask myself every year about my own fee. The good news is that this isn’t a matter of opinion anymore. Several of the largest, most … Read more