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Dear Clients and Friends,
We hope this newsletter finds you well as we welcome another year. Here are our major highlights from the first quarter of 2024:
Welcome Katelyn Meuse CFP® - New Wealth Advisor Associate
Katelyn joined the Arete team late January coming from Northwestern Mutual. For the past five years, Katelyn has built a strong track record of providing personalized financial advice and crafting comprehensive wealth management strategies for clients. Katelyn’s passion for personal finance began at Colorado State University, where she earned a degree in Business Administration with a concentration in Personal Financial Planning. Further demonstrating her commitment to the field, Katelyn obtained the esteemed Certified Financial Planner (CFP®) designation in 2021.
Beyond her dedication to client success, Katelyn enjoys cooking with cast iron, reading for leisure, and providing transportation assistance to her two children to their various extracurriculars.
Q1 saw us roll out a new client innovation we’ve been incredibly excited about - the Collaborative Client Meeting Agenda (CCMA). Many clients will have noticed that we removed the meeting topic checkboxes from the Calendly booking form and generated a much more extensive list of topics in Notion. The CCMA helps us better determine what you’d like to talk about and helps us hone our meeting preparation. Overall this has made for better, more productive meetings.
There were a few instances of clients who received portal invitations but couldn’t actually login to see the CCMA. We believe these login issues are now all fixed.
Overall, we saw a significant improvement in client satisfaction over prior year with moderate to significant improvements in client satisfaction across the following categories:
We should probably get this out of the way at the beginning: nobody should expect that 10% quarterly gains in the stock market will continue forever, or even for the rest of the year, unless you believe that stocks will become 40% more valuable into the foreseeable future. But we can celebrate a generous quarter of returns nonetheless.
Double-digit and near-double-digit gains were everywhere to be found in this unusual quarter. The Wilshire 5000 Total Market Index—the broadest measure of U.S. stocks—gained 9.95% as of March 28 (March 29 data is apparently unavailable for the index). The Russell 3000 index gained 10.02% in the first quarter.
Please keep an eye out for the registration emails closer to the date.
Couples Who Combine Finances Are Happier. So Why Don’t More Do It?
All couples hitch their fortunes together. Only some choose to also pool their finances.It might not seem as pressing a question as when to meet the parents or whether to start a family, but deciding to move your money in together can have a big impact on future wealth.
Increasingly Creative Scams
Remember the smooth attorney representing a Nigerian prince, who wanted you to help him launder millions of dollars?
Debt Rising, Consumption Falling?
By all accounts, the U.S. economy is humming along on all cylinders. Inflation is down (but not out), unemployment is still low by historical standards and GDP growth is healthy.
Green Book Wish List
Every year around this time, the current presidential administration releases a set of tax-related proposals, essentially a wish list for tax legislation for the coming year.
The Comprehensive Departure Planning Guide for those Planning their Australian Move. In this webinar, we reviewed a project planner of key financial planning decisions and actions one needs to take well before and well after their move to Australia to ensure a successful transition
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We also ran two Premium client webinars. These are 90 minute webinars where I go into extra depth on a topic and make a private recording available to attendees in addition to the slides. Proceeds from registrations go to charity. The first webinar in January was ‘The Comprehensive Guide to Claiming Social Security from Australia,’ and the second was a Deep Dive on the HEART Act / Exit Tax. In total I raised over $1300 for The Nature Conservancy and the The Natural Resources Defence Council.
Our Process - The Wealth Summit Pathway
If you’ve been pleased with the work we’ve accomplished together and have a friend or someone you care about facing similar challenges, please make an introduction. We guide all prospective clients through our Wealth Summit Pathway (WSP). The WSP is a well-defined process for onboarding a new client that aims to understand someone's most deeply held values, goals and understand their relationship to money. If we’re not the right firm to help them, we will do our best to find them the right advisor.
"Please let us know if we might be of assistance.
Have a wonderful rest of your day,"
Ashley Murphy, GFP (USA/AUS) CFP® AIF®
Areté Wealth Strategists, LLC.
Access our comprehensive, unbiased financial guides here.
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