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Another Reason to Eliminate Credit Card Debt

You might have heard that the Federal Reserve raised the federal funds interest rate another 0.25% recently.  That puts this rate at 2.0%.  (It is expected to rise to 2.5% by the end of the year and to 3.5% by 2020.)  As the Fed rate increases, so does the prime rate that banks use for lending.  And, credit card rates are tied to the prime rate.  So, an increase in Fed interest rates directly leads to an increase in credit card rates.

About half all households carry credit card debt and the average debt level per household is about $16,000.  So, each 0.25% of increase in interest costs a household $40 per year.  This means that the projected increase from the previous level (1.75%) to the forecast 2020 level (3.5%) will cost the average household with credit card debt about $280 per year.  While that’s not a ton of money, why throw it away?

Okay, so rates are going to rise which will increase the cost of credit card debt.  Even if we neglect that increase, credit card debt is probably the costliest kind of borrowing that you can do.  Assuming a credit card rate of 17% on a balance of $16,000, you’ll be paying $2,720 per year in interest.  Now for most of us, that’s serious money.

Since credit card rates are already high and are rising, it probably makes sense to pay down this debt as rapidly as possible.  Once you’ve done that, you’ll be in a position to reap additional dividends.  Take the monthly credit card payments you’ve been making and put half of it into a rainy-day fund.  Use the other half to pay off current balances on your credit cards so you can avoid any credit card interest.

If you’d like to see how you can retire your credit card debt or discuss any other financial questions you might have, we’d be happy to talk with you in a no-charge, no-obligation initial meeting.  Just visit our website or give us a call at 970.419.8212 to learn more.

This article is for informational purposes only. This website does not provide tax or investment advice, nor is it an offer or solicitation of any kind to buy or sell any investment products.  Please consult your tax or investment advisor for specific advice.

Reducing 2018 Taxes with Qualified Charitable Distributions

You are probably aware that the tax laws are changing in 2018.  However, many of us aren’t crystal clear on all of the details of these changes.  For example, deductions are changing.  The biggest deduction change is that the standard deduction has increased.  The increase applies to all taxpayers.  As an example, it’s $24,000 for joint filers (plus $1300 for each spouse over 65).  As a consequence, many people will use the standard deduction rather than itemized deductions starting in 2018.  (The changes in mortgage deductions, home-equity interest deductions, limits on state and local taxes and other deduction restrictions make it even more likely that people will opt for the standard deduction.)

So, in this new tax environment, people are thinking about how to minimize taxes if they switch from itemized to standard deductions.  One approach that’s being considered is the Qualified Charitable Distribution rule or QCD.  This allows you to contribute up to $100,000 per year per taxpayer to qualified charities and to reduce your adjusted gross income (AGI) by this amount.  Lowering your AGI offers benefits not available when using itemized deductions.  For example, a lower AGI might put you into a lower tax bracket or even help you reduce the amount of Social Security that is taxable.

Even if you made charitable contributions in the past, you may not have heard of QCDs before.  They simply permit you to transfer money directly from your traditional IRA to a qualified charity if you are 70 ½ or older.  This reduces your AGI and eliminates taxes on the donated portion of your required minimum distribution.  (The RMD is an amount that you must withdraw from your traditional IRA annually once you reach age 70 ½.)

There are a few details that need to be considered when using this tax strategy.  For example, you cannot use it until the tax year in which you turn 70 ½, spouses must withdraw their QCDs from separate IRAs, distributions to charities must be made by December 31st and non-deductible IRAs do not qualify.  If you’d like help with these details or with a more comprehensive QCD discussion, we’d be happy to talk with you in a no-charge, no-obligation initial meeting.  Just visit our website or give us a call at 970.419.8212 to learn more.

This article is for informational purposes only. This website does not provide tax or investment advice, nor is it an offer or solicitation of any kind to buy or sell any investment products.  Please consult your tax or investment advisor for specific advice.

Transitioning to Retirement

Retirement — kind of has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?  For many of us, it means starting a new chapter in our life and doing some of the things we didn’t seem to have time for while we were working.  I’ve written before about some of the financial aspects of retirement.  The Retirement Checklist article is one recent example of this.  This month, I want to talk a bit about some of the non-financial aspects of retirement.  You might want to reread The Three Phases of Retirement article to kind of tee this up.

Let’s start by identifying the most central aspect of retirement — change.  Yep, your routine is going to dramatically altered.  For some of us, we’ll miss the self-worth that sometimes comes with a successful career.  We might also miss socializing with our colleagues at work.  On the other hand, the time pressure of work will ease up or even go away.  Maybe we’ve had a boss we didn’t like.  The point is, things will be different and how we feel about that varies from one person to another.

There are lots of articles and many books on retirement.  After reading some of these and visiting with my friends and clients who have retired, I’ve found that there are four concepts that can benefit most of us.

First of all, it’s probably good advice to let yourself settle into retirement a bit before doing anything major.  This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take your dream vacation shortly after retirement.  But, you might want to hold off on moving to a new city, selling your home and other major decisions.

Second, it’s fairly well established that relationships are good for us – including both our physical and our psychological health.  Retirement can offer more time for socializing.  Spending more time with your spouse, visiting your kids and grandkids, having lunch more often with a best friend or group of friends are just a few of the ways we can strengthen our relationships.  If most of your relationships were professional, it might be that some of those people would still like to get together from time to time.  You can also meet new acquaintances by taking classes, going to the health club, joining a committee at church, doing volunteer work and so on.

Third, it’s up to you how to best use the time that retirement offers.  Maybe you want to play golf every day.  Maybe you want to learn a new language.  Maybe you want to learn to play an instrument.  Maybe you want to read more books or see more movies.  The options are endless.

Fourth, and finally, a lot of the time pressure and stress that you had to manage while you were working will be dramatically reduced or even eliminated.  You may be just as busy as you were while working, but you’ll be busy doing the things that you want to do and doing them at your own pace and that’s a huge difference.

If you’d like to discuss your retirement situation, we’d be happy to talk with you in a no-charge, no-obligation initial meeting.  Just visit our website or give us a call at 970.419.8212 to learn more.

This article is for informational purposes only. This website does not provide tax or investment advice, nor is it an offer or solicitation of any kind to buy or sell any investment products.  Please consult your tax or investment advisor for specific advice.

IRS Tax Scams

April 15th is coming up soon and the tax scammers have been in high gear.  I even received a recorded call threatening me with arrest from some scammers this year!  The most important thing to know is that the IRS never makes an initial contact by phone or email.  If they do send you a letter, it will be easily verifiable.  If anyone calls saying they are the IRS, just hang up.  In fact, always be suspicious of any email or call asking for personal information.  I’ll cover two scams that are currently being used in this article.

In the first type of scam, victims are told that they owe money to the IRS and it must be paid promptly through a pre-loaded debit card or wire transfer.  If the victim refuses to cooperate, they are then threatened with arrest, deportation or suspension of a business or driver’s license.  In many cases, the caller becomes hostile and insulting.

“This scam has hit taxpayers in nearly every state in the country.  We want to educate taxpayers so they can help protect themselves.  Rest assured, we do not and will not ask for credit card numbers over the phone, nor request a pre-paid debit card or wire transfer,” says IRS Acting Commissioner Danny Werfel. “If someone unexpectedly calls claiming to be from the IRS and threatens police arrest, deportation or license revocation if you don’t pay immediately, that is a sign that it really isn’t the IRS calling.”

Other characteristics of this scam include:

  • Scammers use fake names and IRS badge numbers.  They generally use common names and surnames to identify themselves.
  • Scammers may be able to recite the last four digits of a victim’s Social Security Number.
  • Scammers spoof the IRS toll-free number on caller ID to make it appear that it’s the IRS calling.
  • Scammers sometimes send bogus IRS emails to some victims to support their bogus calls.
  • Victims hear background noise of other calls being conducted to mimic a call site.
  • After threatening victims with jail time or driver’s license revocation, scammers hang up and others soon call back pretending to be from the local police or DMV, and the caller ID supports their claim.

In the second type of scam, criminals actually deposit a “refund” in your bank account and then have a “collection agency” contact you to reclaim the funds.  Once again, just hang up.  The IRS recently published some warning signs that this scam may be occurring. They say you should be alert to possible tax-related identity theft if you are contacted by the IRS or your tax professional/provider about any of the following situations:

  • More than one tax return was filed using your SSN.
  • You owe additional tax, refund offset or have had collection actions taken against you for a year you did not file a tax return.
  • IRS records indicate you received wages or other income from an employer for whom you did not work.

Unfortunately, scammers seem to be a part of our lives in recent years.  If you need more information on these scams or just want to discuss some other aspect of your financial life, we’d be happy to talk with you in a no-charge, no-obligation initial meeting.  Just visit our website or give us a call at 970.419.8212 to learn more.

This article is for informational purposes only. This website does not provide tax or investment advice, nor is it an offer or solicitation of any kind to buy or sell any investment products.  Please consult your tax or investment advisor for specific advice.

Inflation

I’m pretty sure every reader has a pretty good understanding of inflation.  In general terms, things cost more as inflation rises so that a fixed amount of money buys fewer things.  And from an investment point of view, a portfolio worth a certain amount of money will buy less as inflation rises.

Inflation is measured in a variety of ways.  For most of us, the most familiar measurement is the Consumer Price Index.  The CPI increased from January 2017 to January 2018 by 2.07%.  This is pretty good as most industrialized governments attempt to keep inflation between 2% and 3%.

The overall CPI is an important measure of spending power.  However, it’s also important to look at the sub-groups that make up the CPI.  For example, over the last twelve months housing increased 2.79%, medical care increased 1.98% and education and communication decreased 1.73%.  So, if you’re retired and have paid off your house, the housing component wouldn’t be that important whereas heath care would be quite important.

What does inflation mean to our investments?  To understand that, we need to understand the difference between nominal and real interest rates.  Nominal interest rate is the growth of your investments.  Real interest rates represent your investment growth after inflation is taken into account.  As an example, suppose inflation is running at 3.5% and your portfolio is currently returning 6%.  Nominal is 6% and real is 2.5% (6% – 3.5%).  The important lesson here is to think about the real rate of return since that represents your purchasing power.

For many of us, our investments can be divided into stocks and bonds.  It’s generally accepted that over the long run, stocks are able to cope with inflation fairly well.  Bonds on the other hand usually suffer as inflation rises.  This hasn’t really been true during the last few years, but normally rising inflation leads to rising interest rates.  And as interest rates rise, fixed-income investments like bonds lose value since a new bond has a higher rate of return than an older existing bond.   Now there are some important nuances here.  One example is when you hold bonds that yield at least your targeted withdrawal rate in retirement.  Suppose your retirement plan is to withdraw 3.5% per year from your portfolio.  Now if your returns are higher than that, your earnings are less than the current yield, but still high enough to meet you goals.

You can see that inflation matters and that the best defense depends on whether you’re retired or not as well as other factors.  We’d be happy to talk about inflation and your particular situation or any other financial matters in a no-charge, no-obligation initial meeting.  Just visit our website or give us a call at 970.419.8212 to learn more.

This article is for informational purposes only. This website does not provide tax or investment advice, nor is it an offer or solicitation of any kind to buy or sell any investment products.  Please consult your tax or investment advisor for specific advice.

The Bitcoin Bubble

If I say the 2000 dot-com bubble or the 2007 housing bubble, you immediately have a pretty good idea what a bubble is.  Basically it’s when the price of some asset strongly exceeds the asset’s intrinsic value.  The first recorded asset bubble occurred in the 1600s when the price of Dutch tulip bulbs went through the roof.  Experts have tried to predict bubbles, but have largely failed.  Bubbles are only agreed on retrospectively – once a sudden drop in prices has occurred.  Indeed, within mainstream economics, many believe that bubbles cannot be identified in advance; cannot be prevented from forming; that attempts to “prick” the bubble may cause financial crisis; and that instead authorities should wait for bubbles to burst of their own accord, dealing with the aftermath via monetary policy and fiscal policy.

Several causes have been identified for bubbles such as excessive monetary liquidity; extrapolating past extraordinary returns of certain assets into the future; herd behavior (investors tend to buy or sell in the direction of the market trend); and moral hazard issues (when the risk-reward relationship is interfered with, often via government policy).

Okay, this is interesting, but how can it help you protect your assets from future bubbles?  Well, first of all you need to be aware that bubbles continue to exist and are impossible to accurately identify before the burst (or crash) begins.  Secondly, remember the definition in the beginning of this article:  watch for situations when some asset is strongly exceeding its intrinsic value.

There are a few things going on right now that deserve bubble scrutiny.  This includes stock market prices overall; housing in California (which often sets national trends); hot individual stocks such as Facebook, Tesla and Google; and cryptocurrencies.

Let’s drill down just a bit on the last one.  The most famous cryptocurrency is Bitcoin, but Ethereum and ripple are important players too.  Bitcoin’s value increased 343% in the past year and Ethereum is up 3,600%.  Ripple increased from 23 cents per coin to about $3.00 in about a month.

Now these kinds of increases are a bit thrilling and it’s tempting to want to join the party.  But cryptocurrencies walk like a bubble and talk like a bubble, so they just might be a bubble.  My belief is there are other investment alternatives where prices are more in line with asset values.  So, for my money, it just might be better to avoid the temporary thrill as well as the likely long-term pain of cryptocurrencies.

Want to talk more about financial bubbles or any other financial matters in a no-charge, no-obligation initial meeting?  Just visit our website or give us a call at 970.419.8212 to learn more.

This article is for informational purposes only. This website does not provide tax or investment advice, nor is it an offer or solicitation of any kind to buy or sell any investment products.  Please consult your tax or investment advisor for specific advice.

2018 Financial Resolutions

Happy New Year!  As we welcome in 2018, we might want to set a couple of financial resolutions so that we have plenty of time to realize our goals.  Typically, people have similar resolutions in mind.  Common ones are increasing your 401(k), preparing a spending plan, reviewing the new tax rules, increasing your emergency fund, updating (or creating) estate documents and revisiting life insurance.  Some of these we’ll talk about in future blogs, but let’s hit one that I emphasize with clients.

In my mind, there’s one financial resolution that stands out for many of us.  It’s your 401(k) plan.  In 2018, we are permitted to contribute up to $18,500 to our 401(k).  And there’s an additional $6,000 contribution permitted for those of us who are 50 or older.  Why does your 401(k) deserve special attention?  First of all, maximizing your retirement savings is a great way to ensure a nice nest egg for your golden years.  For example, saving $10,000 annually starting at age 40 and assuming a 4.5% growth rate over the next 25 years would add about $465,000 to your retirement assets.  Second, these contributions lower your taxable income.  That’s right, the recently passed Tax Cuts & Jobs Act still permits funding 401(k) plans with pre-tax money.  So, if your income is $75,000 and you contribute $10,000, your taxes are calculated on $65,000.  At this income level, your tax rate would be 22%.  So, the $10,000 reduction in your income would save you $2,200!  And last, but not least, there are the matching contributions from your employer.  Many employers match your contributions (or at least some percentage of your contributions) up to some specified limit.  If your employer has a 100% match up to say $5,000, the match to your 401(k) contribution would be $5,000.  That’s a 50% growth rate!  So, why not sign up for or increase your contributions to capitalize on this great deal!

We’d be happy to go over any of your 2018 financial resolutions or talk about any other financial questions you may have in a no-charge, no-obligation initial meeting.  Just visit our website or give us a call at 970.419.8212 to learn more.

This article is for informational purposes only. This website does not provide tax or investment advice, nor is it an offer or solicitation of any kind to buy or sell any investment products.  Please consult your tax or investment advisor for specific advice.

As 2017 Winds Down…

Can you believe it, we’re only a month away from the end of the year!  For many of us, we’re pretty busy with our normal activities (work, school, etc.) and then we have the holidays to prepare for too.  It seems like there’s no time for anything else and yet there may be some very important financial matters to take care of before December 31st.

You may be familiar with the many financial considerations that could stand a little time before year’s end.  For example, do you have an employer-sponsored Flexible Spending Account?  Such accounts   often have rules about using the balance or losing it.  Then there are discretionary medical expenditures.  If you’ve already reached your deductible limits, December might be the perfect time to take care of some medical needs.  Naturally, there’s an important budgeting exercise for December.  Plan and stick to a holiday spending budget.  Do your investments need rebalancing?  The market has done very well this year and naturally some things have done better than others.  Why not check your asset-allocation plan?  Speaking of the market, you may want to sell some of your investments that have lost money to help lower your tax bill.

Here’s one end-of-year action you may want to consider.  It’s got to do with your property taxes.  You may have heard that congress is in the process of trying to pass some tax-reform legislation.  One provision in the proposed law eliminates the deduction for property taxes.  So, here’s what I recommend that you do.  Keep your eye on this bill and see if it becomes law before the end of the year.  If it does, consider prepaying your 2018 property taxes in 2017.  Since deductions are applied to the year in which they are paid (rather than the year that they are due), you can still claim your 2018 property-tax payment even if the law goes into effect.  Since the 2018 property taxes are not yet posted online and since taxes will increase 15-25% in 2018, you should visit the Larimer County Treasurer’s Office (200 W. Oak St #2100) to request a firm estimate.  Be sure to take your checkbook!

We’d be happy to discuss any end-of-year financial questions (or any other questions) you may have in a no-charge, no-obligation initial meeting.  Just visit our website or give us a call at 970.419.8212 to learn more.

This article is for informational purposes only. This website does not provide tax or investment advice, nor is it an offer or solicitation of any kind to buy or sell any investment products.  Please consult your tax or investment advisor for specific advice.

Retirement Checklist

There are many, many decisions to be made as you move from the working phase of your life to the retirement phase.  Retirement planning is a common discussion that we have with our clients – regardless of their age.  This article talks about some retirement considerations that seem to be universally applicable.

Retirement Date.  You may have been thinking about retiring at a particular age for some time.  Before actually taking the big step, see if your plans need any adjustments.  For example, delaying retirement a year or two can make a significant difference in your retirement finances.  This is because of two key factors.  First, you reduce the number of years that your savings need to last.  Second, you accumulate additional savings to help fund retirement.  Additionally, you should think about whether this is the right time to fully retire or to partially retire.  Not only does part-time employment provide additional income during retirement, but it may enable you to keep doing something that you love, but at a more relaxed pace.

Expenses.  It’s difficult to know whether you’re financially ready to retire if you don’t know how much you’ll need.  There are rules of thumb that you can use, but they vary quite a bit.  The old standard was that you’ll need about 80% of your pre-retirement income in retirement.  This was based on the elimination of several expenses such as commuting and saving for retirement.  However, certain other expenses will actually increase such as health care and travel expenses.  Many financial advisors now advise planning on having similar pre-retirement and post-retirement expenses.  If affordable, this is a pretty safe bet.  Another expense planning approach is to track your expenses now and adjust certain categories to see what your retirement expense might look like.  A previous blog called How to Manage Expenses in Retirement can fill you in on some of the details of this approach.

Health Care.  This is an expense that deserves special attention because it’s a very large portion of your total expenses and it will increase significantly as you age.  The initial cost of health insurance depends on your age.  If you’re 65 or older, things are pretty straightforward.  Most of us will sign up for Medicare and probably choose one of the supplemental plans.  After considering deductibles and co-pays, we have a pretty good idea of our initial medical costs. If we’re younger than 65, we’ll need to obtain private insurance to replace employer-supplied insurance that many of us had before retiring.  This is pretty dynamic and depends on future changes to the Affordable Care Act.  A special aspect of health care cost is long-term care coverage.  It used to be that people were encouraged to purchase long-term care insurance.  However, in recent years this coverage has become much more expensive and benefits have been reduced.  Other approaches are often superior now such as life insurance policies that pay for long-term care.

Interest Expense. Another expense you’ll want to spend some time thinking about is interest.  It’s interesting that many of the guidelines on interest are the same before and after retirement.  That is, it’s always best to retire high-interest rate debt (such as credit card debt).  Large debts also deserve some consideration, especially as you approach retirement.  Does this mean you should always have your mortgage payed off before retirement?  Not necessarily.  Some people may have greater peace of mind if their mortgage is paid off and that is an excellent reason to do so.  However, from a strictly financial point of view, there are arguments to be made both ways.  The main reason to retire your mortgage is to narrow any gap between your income and your expense projections.  There are several common reasons to not pay off your mortgage before retirement.  These include freeing up funds for other reasons such as maximizing 401(k) contributions before retirement or paying off higher-interest debts.  It may also be that you plan to move in the next few years, so it probably makes sense to maintain your mortgage until then.

Income.  Once you’ve figured out your expenses, you have a good handle on the income you’ll need.  You’ll need to add up all of your investment assets to see where you are on this.  For many of us, this will include Social Security, any pension or defined benefit plans we have, IRAs, 401(k)s or 403(b)s and our personal portfolio of investments.  A reasonable rule of thumb is to withdraw 3.0-3.5% of your nest egg annually to avoid outliving your savings.  So, how do your expense and income results compare?

Portfolio Review.  You probably know that you’ll want to decrease the percentage of your assets that are in the market as you age.  There’s considerable variability on the best way to do this.  Many advisors have their clients at 50% stocks and 50% bonds when retirement begins.  (In practice, this actually varies from a 40/60 to a 60/40 stock/bond position.)  A simple rule of thumb exists that can help you think about your asset allocation.  You simply subtract your age from 110 to determine the percentage you should have in the market at a particular age.  For example, at 70 years old you should have 40% in stocks.  Beyond asset allocation, you’ll want to be sure that your portfolio is properly diversified so that you can ride out the normal ups and downs of the market.

As you can imagine, there are many other financial considerations as you approach retirement.  We’d be glad to help you develop a retirement plan that makes sense in your situation.  If you’ve already put together a retirement plan, we’re able to review it and point out areas you may want to think about a bit more.  In addition, we can stress test your plan to see how it will hold up under a variety of market conditions over the coming decades (using Monte Carlo simulation).  So, whether you’re already retired or are still preparing for it, we’d be happy to sit down with you and review your situation in a no-charge, no-obligation initial meeting.  Just visit our website or give us a call at 970.419.8212 to learn more.

This article is for informational purposes only. This website does not provide tax or investment advice, nor is it an offer or solicitation of any kind to buy or sell any investment products.  Please consult your tax or investment advisor for specific advice.

The Three Phases of Retirement

Congratulations if you’ve already reached retirement!  This can be a wonderful time in your life. But just like pre-retirement, there will be different phases in retirement. In this article, I’ll introduce you to what many people call the three phases of retirement.

Phase One.  For many of us, this is the first decade or so of retirement.  Say 65-75 to make it concrete.  It’s the time that hopefully we’re still in excellent health and we still have a lot of energy.  It’s kind of like when we were working, except now we have the time and the money to do what we want.  For lots of us, we’ll travel, do some recreational things and generally just enjoy ourselves.  This is often the sweet spot of retirement.

To support it, you’ll typically spend more than you will later in retirement.  Let’s get specific here.  A commonly used rule of thumb is that if you withdraw 3-3.5% of your investments per year in retirement, you won’t outlive your funds.  In phase one, many people increase the withdrawal rate to about 4% to pay for the extra travel and other fun things.

You may wonder how you can afford spending more in phase one.  The reason this works is because you’ll spend less on just about everything else (except for health care) as you age.  That’s right, you’ll spend less on food, housing, clothing, transportation and entertainment in phases two and three.  In fact, the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that people who are 75 or older spend 23% less than those in the 65-74 group.

Phase Two.  You might call this the middle period.  Let’s say it covers ages 75-85.  This is when many of us slow down a bit.  Health issues and decreased energy are the usual causes of this.  We’re still enjoying retirement, just in a new way.  For example, we probably travel less.  The Bureau of Labor Statistics found that people who are 75 or older spend 35% less on transportation than those in the 65-74 group.  Medical expenses will probably increase.  If they get a lot higher than the previous decade, it might be worth reviewing the various Medicare plans and getting one with better coverage.  While the premium may be higher, it might save you money overall.

Phase Three.  Some people think of this as the home stretch.  It begins around age 85.  Many of us need some help in this period.  Whether it involves assisted living or hiring some in-home care, medical costs will rise.  Hopefully you made plans earlier in your life to fund these long-term care needs.  This is also a good time to be sure your estate documents are up to date.  Don’t forget to look at your medical directives to be sure your end-of-life wishes are clear.  Many of us will want to review our remaining assets and determine how we’d like to use them.  Maybe we want to help a grandchild with college.  Maybe we want to watch our final expenses so we can maximize the legacy we leave.  The “best choice” is as individual as you are!

Whether you’re already retired or are still preparing for it, we’d be happy to sit down with you and review your situation in a no-charge, no-obligation initial meeting.  Just visit our website or give us a call at 970.419.8212 to learn more.

This article is for informational purposes only. This website does not provide tax or investment advice, nor is it an offer or solicitation of any kind to buy or sell any investment products.  Please consult your tax or investment advisor for specific advice.