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Thought Leadership Archive

5 Year-End Tax Planning Strategies for 2021

The end of the year is quickly approaching and as people turn their attention to holiday celebrations with friends and family, taxes are naturally the last thing on their minds. However, implementing one or more of…

Common Cents Blog

Common Cents & Inflation

Unless you haven’t bought anything in the last 12 months or so, you know just about everything is a little more expensive. Further, American consumers are finding things a little harder to find, everyday stuff like…

Common Cents Blog

Common Cents & Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is a day to take pause and give thanks for the blessings in your life, be they large or small. It isn’t necessarily a commemoration of the harvest feast of 1621 in what was then…

Common Cents Blog

Common Cents & Zaijian China

During the Spring of 2020, our investment committee made the relatively aggressive move to completely exit our already underweight international allocation. By completely exit, I mean none, ninguno, rien, keiner, nessuno, geen, and nashi. Our reasoning…

Common Cents Blog

Common Cents & Energy

Since Halloween, the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, also known as COP26, has been going on in Glasgow, Scotland. An estimated 25,000 delegates from roughly 200 countries, including many heads of state, have attended in…

Common Cents Blog

Common Cents & Trench Warfare

This morning, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released the “The Employment Situation – October 2021,” which showed the US economy created 531K net, new payroll jobs. This was significantly higher than last month’s initial reading…

Is the stock market expensive?

Growing up, my parents would listen to the radio every morning getting ready for the day. It was always on an AM news station, and when Paul Harvey came on, it was time for the kids…

“Build Back Better” Tax Plan Update

Yesterday afternoon, the newest version of the “Build Back Better” Tax Plan was released. While this is only a proposal it is worth noting that there are several major changes from the version of the bill…

Common Cents Blog

Common Cents & Making Lemonade

Yesterday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BEA) reported the US economy grew at a 2.0% annualized rate during the 3rd Quarter of 2021. This was slower than analysts were expecting, and much slower than 2nd Quarter’s…

Common Cents Blog

Common Cents & Risk

In the investment industry, we talk a lot about risk and reward. Over time, they should be perfectly, positively correlated. The more risk you take, the more reward you should receive. The opposite is also true,…