MFAC BLOG

What the Evidence Says About Market Timing and the Power of Staying the Course On any given day, the financial world is buzzing with activity. Between morning newsletters, app notifications, and casual conversations about the latest market movements, investors are constantly fed a stream of updates. The implicit message behind all this noise is almost always the same: you need to take action. But when faced with this daily influx of information, a quiet question often arises:

Turning embedded gains into charitable impact—without handing the IRS a windfall With major stock market indices sitting near historic highs, many investors find themselves with substantial unrealized capital gains in their taxable brokerage accounts. That’s a great position to be in—but it also creates a tax problem. Sell those shares for any reason, and you’ll likely owe capital gains taxes that can eat 15% to 23.8% of the appreciation, depending on your income (not includi

A practical framework for tackling the biggest fear in retirement planning If there’s one question that keeps pre-retirees up at night, it’s this: will my money last? It’s not an irrational fear. People are living longer, healthcare costs are rising, and markets don’t move in a straight line. The good news is that outliving your assets isn’t an inevitability — it’s a risk that can be managed, measured, and in many cases, significantly reduced. The key is knowing which questio

The questions you need to answer before you walk out the door Retirement feels like a single moment — the last day of work, the first Monday morning with nowhere to be. But the financial reality is that retirement is a series of interconnected decisions, and most of them need to be made before you leave your employer. Miss one, and it can cost you real money for years. This guide walks through the major issues to consider before you retire, organized into six categories: cash

Sequence-of-Returns Risk, Opportunity Cost, and the Case for Portfolio Preservation In the first post of this series, we established a foundational idea: Social Security should never be viewed in isolation. Maximizing your monthly benefit doesn’t always mean maximizing your total financial picture. In this post, I want to dig deeper into one of the reasons why—and it has everything to do with what’s happening inside your investment portfolio. The conventional advice to delay

If there’s one expense category that has a way of catching retirees off guard, it’s healthcare. Costs rise faster than general inflation, needs become harder to predict with age, and a single significant health event can put real pressure on even a well-constructed plan. Yet too often, healthcare is treated as an afterthought—something to figure out when the time comes. What replaces that anxiety is a concrete plan—one that maps out likely costs, models their impact on your s

Of all the decisions you’ll face in retirement, few carry more weight than when to claim Social Security. For many, it’s highly nuanced and goes beyond simply locking in a monthly check. It’s about aligning a guaranteed, lifetime income stream with your health, your work plans, your family situation, and your broader portfolio strategy. A thoughtful claiming strategy can add tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in lifetime benefits—and meaningfully re

Retirement marks a fundamental shift—from building wealth to using it wisely. You’re no longer saving for “someday.” You’re living it. But for many retirees, investing actually feels more uncertain in this phase, not less. Market headlines are relentless. Volatility is unnerving. And the stakes feel higher when you've made that switch from accumulating wealth to spending it. That’s why I believe retirement investing should be grounded in structure, evidence, and personal rele

As we conclude “Your First Year of High-Net-Worth Financial Planning,” this final installment brings together the essential components...

In today’s complex financial landscape, affluent investors face many opportunities and challenges when it comes to investment planning....