Are Federal Deficits a Concern?
A federal deficit occurs when the government's
expenditures for the year exceed its income. The government then
pays for those excess expenditures by borrowing money, adding
to the national debt. After a brief period of budget surpluses,
the federal government is again running up substantial budget
deficits. Are these deficits a cause for concern? It's tough to
decide, since opinions range from they don't matter at all to
they will ultimately result in federal bankruptcy. It might help
to put the federal deficits in perspective.
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What Happened to Personal Saving?
For years, we've heard that our personal
savings rate is dismally low. However, that knowledge has not
led to an increase in savings. Instead, personal savings as a
percentage of disposable income has continued to hover at historically
low levels, 0.9% in 2004 (Source: The Regional Economist,
July 2005). How concerned should we be by this trend?
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How Affordable Is Housing?
The National Association of Realtors publishes
a monthly statistic called the Housing Affordability Index (HAI),
which compares median household income to income needed to purchase
a median priced home. The index provides a measure of how affordable
housing is in the United States, and tracked over time, shows
whether housing is becoming more or less affordable.
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Handling the Family’s Finances
In many families, one spouse takes primary
responsibility for the family's finances, doing everything from
paying bills to making investment decisions to reviewing insurance
policies. If that spouse dies first, the surviving spouse may
have difficulty taking over these tasks. Therefore, if you take
care of money matters in your marriage, one of your most important
financial duties is to prepare your spouse to handle the family's
finances. Some strategies to consider include...
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A Return to Dividends?
During the bull market of the 1990s, dividends
fell out of favor. With stock prices rising so dramatically, dividends
didn't seem to matter. Historically, however, dividends have been
a significant component of stocks' total return. For instance,
from 1926 to 1985, dividends equaled approximately 49% of the
total return of the Standard & Poor's 500 (S&P 500), with
an average dividend yield of 4.8%. In contrast, from 1998 to 2004,
the average dividend yield was 1.5%.
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David K. Sebastian, CFP®, and his team of experts at The Physicians Wealth Management Group specialize in working with individual physicians and group medical practices. David is considered to be one of the top financial advisors in the country with more than twenty five years of Wall Street experience as a chief investment officer, portfolio manager, institutional bond trader, and estate planning, benefits planning and retirement consultant.
Commitment to his clients’ financial needs and well being is a primary motivation for David.
The Physicians Wealth Management Group was specifically created to address and manage all of the unique financial challenges that doctors are facing both individually and through their group medical practices.
Feel free to contact me at
www.physicianswealth.com or
dsebastian@sfr1.com
or call me at (973) 285-3600
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