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October 9, 2026
The Market Handed You a Gain. The IRS Would Like a Word.
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
October 6, 2026
You Can Divide a Marriage 50/50. A Business Doesn’t Work That Way.
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
October 2, 2026
Vericrest Insights – October 2026
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
September 28, 2026
There Are Two Ways to Pay for Grandkids’ Tuition. Only One of Them Also Shrinks Your Estate.
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
September 22, 2026
The Standard Deduction Had a Good Run. For Some of You, It’s Over.
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
September 17, 2026
The Fed Just Raised Rates. Here’s Why Our Portfolios Are Built for This.
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,
September 4, 2026
Vericrest Insights
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
August 31, 2026
What Jackson Hole Told Us About Rates – And What It Didn’t Tell Us About AI
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
August 25, 2026
Is Hiring a Financial Advisor Worth It?
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
August 18, 2026
Where You Live Needs a Prenup, Too
William F. Davis, CFP® A prenuptial agreement only works if you sign it before the marriage falls apart. Try to negotiate one during the divorce and a judge will laugh you out of the room, and rightly so. Domicile works the same way. The evidence that you actually live in a low tax state has to be built while
August 11, 2026
What Every Roth IRA Investor Should Actually Know
Beyond the basics: contribution rules, conversions, the two 5-year clocks, and why the fine print matters By William F. Davis, CFP® Roth IRAs get talked about so often that it’s easy to assume everyone already understands how they work. In my experience, that’s rarely true. Clients generally know the headline: contributions go in after-tax, and qualified withdrawals come out tax-free. What they don’t always know
August 4, 2026
Vericrest Insights – August 2026
A Fed That Can’t Agree, a Market That’s Broader Than It Looks, and the Math on Staying In Happy August. Somewhere between a Fed meeting that ended in the most dissents since 2016 and a market that hit a new high, sold off, and rallied back – all inside about a week – summer decided
August 4, 2026
How Much Do You Actually Need to Retire?
The “magic number” everyone quotes is a survey result, not a plan. By William F. Davis, CFP®, CDFA® Northwestern Mutual runs the same survey every spring, and every spring it produces a headline. This year’s number is $1.46 million, which the firm says is what the average American believes they need to retire comfortably, up
July 28, 2026
Should You Open a Trump Account for Your Child or Grandchild?
By William F. Davis, CFP® Every few years Washington hands out a new acronym and a new account type, and everyone scrambles to figure out if it’s worth the paperwork. Trump Accounts, which officially launched on July 4, are this cycle’s version. So let’s skip the noise and get to the arithmetic, because that’s really what this decision comes down to. Here’s the
July 21, 2026
Five Ways to Shrink (Not Escape) Your RMDs
Why there’s no legal way to skip Required Minimum Distributions on a traditional IRA, and what you can actually do about the tax bill If you have a sizeable traditional IRA, I can tell you the honest answer up front: there is no legal way to avoid Required Minimum Distributions entirely once you’re subject to them. The IRS designed RMDs specifically
July 14, 2026
You Might Already Be “Done” Saving for Retirement. You Just Don’t Know It Yet.
There’s a strategy in the FIRE community called “Coast FIRE,” and I think it deserves a wider audience than the spreadsheet-and-subreddit crowd it usually lives in. The idea is simple, even if the name sounds like a Silicon Valley protein bar. You reach Coast FIRE when the money you’ve already saved for retirement, left alone to compound with zero additional contributions, is
July 7, 2026
You Saved It. Why Won’t You Spend It?
By William F. Davis, CFP® The surprising psychology behind why retirees leave money on the table – and what to do about it. I have this conversation more often than you might think. A client comes in for their annual review. Their portfolio is doing well. Their Social Security and pension cover the basics. Their savings
July 1, 2026
Vericrest Insights – July 2026
A New Fed Chair’s First Real Test, an Expensive Market, and the Math Nobody Wants to Do on Social Security Happy July. The fireworks this year aren’t just on the 4th – they’ve been going off in the bond market since Kevin Warsh took the podium. Let’s get into it. June by the Numbers The S&P 500 closed out the
June 30, 2026
Not All Dollars Are Created Equal
William F. Davis, CFP® What Divorce Attorneys and Their Clients Often Get Wrong About Asset Division When a marriage ends, the financial conversation almost always starts with a number. You pull together statements from every account – brokerage, IRA, 401(k), pension, Roth – and someone draws a line down the middle. Half for you, half
June 26, 2026
The 4% Rule Isn’t a Rule. It’s a Guess With Good PR.
For something that gets treated like settled law, the 4% rule has always rested on a fairly shaky premise: that you’ll spend the exact same inflation-adjusted dollar amount every single year of retirement, for thirty years, no matter what the market does, no matter what you actually want to do with your life. Speaking of
June 25, 2026
The Fiscal Math Washington Keeps Avoiding, and What It Means for Your Money
By William F. Davis, CFP®, CDFA®, APMA® Every few months a new headline reminds us that the federal government is spending more than it takes in. Most people skim past it the way they skim past a weather report for a city they do not live in. That is a mistake, because this particular forecast eventually shows
June 23, 2026
The IRS Isn’t Coming for Your Estate. Harrisburg Might Be.
William F. Davis, CFP® The federal exemption is $15 million. Pennsylvania didn’t get the memo. When the One Big Beautiful Bill Act made the federal estate tax exemption permanent at $15 million per person, a lot of families exhaled. And understandably so. For most households – even affluent ones – the federal estate tax is no longer
June 16, 2026
The One Big Beautiful Bill Has a Few Ugly Surprises
William F. Davis, CFP® Everyone read the headline. Almost nobody read the footnotes. When the One Big Beautiful Bill Act was signed into law on July 4, 2025, the financial press did what it always does – it led with the big number. A $15 million federal estate tax exemption per person. $30 million for married couples. Permanent. Indexed for inflation.
June 9, 2026
If You’re Between 60 and 63, the IRS Just Gave You a Gift – Did You Grab It?
William F. Davis, CFP® It’s called the “super catch-up.” The name is accurate. The awareness is not. Most people know the IRS allows workers over 50 to contribute extra money to their 401(k) each year via the standard catch-up contribution. What far fewer know is that Congress quietly created an enhanced version for a very specific group: workers between
June 2, 2026
Vericrest Insights – June 2026
A New Fed Chair, an Old Problem, and a Market That Keeps Climbing Anyway Happy June. Summer is just about here – and so is a Federal Reserve we’ve never quite seen before. Let’s get into it. May by the Numbers May was a good month for equity investors. The S&P 500 returned approximately +4.25% for the month, pushing the index
May 28, 2026
271 Times Your Money. Patience Was the Strategy.
A chart from our friends at Creative Planning has been making the rounds on LinkedIn this week, and frankly, it deserves more than a double-tap and a scroll. It shows what happened to your money across three of the most common “strategies” investors use over the last 50 years: keeping up with inflation, holding cash
May 5, 2026
3 Reasons to Stay Invested Right Now
By William F. Davis, CFP® | Vericrest Private Wealth Markets have been anything but boring lately. Tariffs, headlines, rate uncertainty, geopolitical noise — take your pick. And when the news cycle gets loud enough, it’s natural for investors to start asking the same question: Should I get out and wait this out? It’s a reasonable thought. It’s also, historically speaking, one of the most reliable ways to hurt
May 1, 2026
Vericrest Insights – May 2026
Inflation, Oil, and a Market That’s Repricing Reality For much of the early part of the year, the story seemed straightforward. Inflation was coming down, the Federal Reserve was nearing the end of its tightening cycle, and markets were beginning to look ahead to rate cuts. That combination helped support equities and framed expectations across
April 28, 2026
A New Senior Tax Deduction Is Available Now. Here’s What Actually Matters
The new senior tax deduction is in place and applies to your current tax year. For taxpayers age 65 and older, it allows an additional deduction of up to $6,000 per person, or $12,000 for married couples. It can be used whether you take the standard deduction or itemize, which makes it broadly applicable. The
April 6, 2026
The Value of an Advisor (What the Data Actually Shows)
Most people start in the same place when they think about hiring a financial advisor. The assumption is straightforward: the value must come from picking the right investments – finding the winners, avoiding the losers, and somehow outperforming the market. It’s a clean story. It’s also largely incomplete. Over the past few years – and
