Being a Minnesota native, my first thought on hearing about Prince’s passing was “how can this be?! Is it a horrible hoax?” He was an icon in Minnesota, and growing up in the ‘90s meant I was practically raised on his music.  My senior class song was even “1999” (yes, that is the year I…

Some of you may or may not be aware that the Department of Labor just published the final rules of an important piece of regulation called “Fiduciary”; Conflict of Interest Rule—Retirement Investment Advice.  Before I get in depth as to what this rule means for investors, let’s define it.  The term fiduciary comes from the…

One of the most important aspects of investment success is an alignment of thought and decision making with the relevant time horizon. That is, if we want attractive results five years from now, we should be making decisions today that are most likely to generate those attractive results in five years, given the current circumstances.…

Michigan legislators just recently passed the Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act.  This new law provides you with the ability to name someone that can have access to your digital assets when you die.  Additionally, you can restrict who can access – and even know about – the same. Why is this important? When you…

Investors can be broadly broken down in to two classes:  individuals and institutions.  While the distinction between individuals and institutions is self-evident, the category of “institutional investor” is quite diverse and can include defined-benefit and defined-contribution retirement plans, foundations and endowments, insurance companies, banks, and mutual funds.  As institutions often represent large pools of money,…

At Legacy Trust, we provide wealth management, trust and family office services to individuals and families in West Michigan, designed to meet the needs of our current and prospective clients.  This has led us to develop specialties and expertise in several different areas of wealth management. When meeting with prospects and centers of influence, one…

In the years following the global financial crisis of 2007-2008, central banks around the globe led by the U.S. Federal Reserve took unprecedented steps to stimulate economic growth through exceptionally low interest rates and quantitative easing (QE) programs designed to push liquidity into the hands of individuals and businesses.  While the effectiveness of these programs…

I’m sure you’ve heard the stories or have seen the headlines about the eccentric multi-millionaire that left their $13M fortune to their beloved cat Tommaso or the three Texas pups set to inherit $75M.  You may be asking, is this for real?  I assure you that, yes, this is real, and yes, leaving money for…

Around tax time each year we are reminded about how critical it is to be vigilant in protecting confidential personal information.  As mentioned in a release from the IRS (see the link below), criminals are becoming more and more savvy in how they gather information and then use it to exploit taxpayers across the United…

With the recent decline in the equity market, the time is ripe to discuss how to take this opportunity to turn a “lemon into lemonade”. Nobody likes seeing a decrease in their portfolio value, even if it is just temporary.  However, at times this can indeed be an opportunity in disguise.  Here are four ideas…