As we head into the new year, our goals often center on both physical and financial fitness. Here, Senior Wealth Advisor, Dustin Schofield, with Schofield Wealth Management, offers his best advice for pumping up our portfolios and starting off the new year with healthy wealth-building habits.
When one’s finances are in a healthy state, what do they look like?
Healthy finances involve maintaining a balance between income and expenses, having an emergency fund, managing debt responsibly, saving for goals and having a plan for long-term financial security.
How do you help your clients maintain healthy portfolios?
We discuss and review our clients' financial goals, risk tolerances and time horizons to create financial plans and personalized investment strategies to help them attain their goals and financial vision. Regular reviews and adjustments ensure alignment with clients’ objectives and market conditions. Communication and education are key to empowering clients to make informed decisions.
What are some of the best wealth management strategies and goals clients can set for the new year?
Some ideas clients can use in setting strategies and goals for the new year are financial planning, such as budgeting; setting up an emergency fund and managing debt; setting investment goals, including long-term objectives and investing into a diversified investment portfolio; retirement planning, including making contributions to 401ks, IRAs, etc.; and estate planning, such as working with an estate attorney to update wills or trusts and making sure that beneficiary designations are as desired.
What are potential opportunities and pitfalls to watch out for in 2024?
It is important for clients to be adaptable. Financial plans shift all the time. Clients should work with a financial professional who can model impacts to their portfolios that may occur because of inflation and economic upheaval. We believe 2024 will be an interesting year in both the stock and bond markets because we are coming off very high inflation and rising interest rates. It’s also a presidential election year. Most likely, interest rates have reached their peak and will start coming down over the next one to three years, the speed of which will depend upon whether we go into a recession in 2024. Investors should always be prepared for the unforeseen, so always maintaining a 5 to 10% cash position in one’s portfolio is a good idea. We believe that with interest rates most likely holding steady or coming down in 2024, bonds look very attractive as they have been beaten up so much over the last year-and-a-half or so.
What is important to keep in mind when making investments?
Investing for the future is a long-term commitment and the biggest friend to an investor is compounding. As the old Chinese proverb goes, “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second-best time is now.” Don’t let the market, political and economic ups and downs scare you away from making that investment. There are always opportunities in the stock and bond markets for you to do well, just like there are in real estate and other investments. There’s another saying: “People don’t plan to fail, they just fail to plan.” Most people may need or want to use a financial advisor to help them with their planning. Our advice is to choose wisely.
Contact Schofield Wealth Management at schofieldwm.com or telephone 435.674.3601.
For decades, Dustin and his father, Rick Schofield, have provided investment planning and wealth management advice to high-net-worth individuals, families and businesses.
"Investors should always be prepared for the unforeseen, so always maintaining a 5 to 10% position in one’s portfolio is a good idea."
