WITH YEAR-END IN sight, it’s a good time for some investment housekeeping. What’s worth your attention? Last week, I discussed the importance of asset allocation. According to research, this is the most significant portfolio decision you can make. But while asset allocation is important, it isn’t the only decision. Within each of the major asset classes, there’s another set of considerations. Bonds. Earlier this year, I conducted a survey on X, as Twitter is now known, asking whether a total bond market fund would, on its own, be sufficient to fill an investor’s bond allocation. Nearly three-quarters of respondents said no, and I share that opinion. Why? The bond market is larger and more diverse than the stock market and, for that reason, a broadly diversified basket of bonds may not be what best serves investors. Instead, investors may wish to narrow their bond holdings along several dimensions. The first dimension is what’s known as duration. A bond’s duration is similar to its maturity, and measures how long it would take an investor to get their money back. Bonds with longer durations—or bond funds with longer average durations—face more risk when interest rates rise. That’s precisely what we saw in 2022, when total bond market funds, which have a duration of around six years, lost 13% of their value. By contrast, funds with shorter durations experienced much more modest losses. For example, Vanguard’s Short-Term Bond ETF, with a duration around 2.6 years, lost just 5.5% last year. The next consideration is the type of issuer. Bonds are issued by the federal government, by state and local governments, by foreign governments, and by corporations. And all of these, with the exception of U.S. Treasury bonds, are available from issuers of all different levels of creditworthiness. A final consideration when choosing bonds: whether to invest in a bond fund or individual bonds. You can find high-quality, low-cost funds covering each corner of the bond market, plus investing through funds typically makes life simpler. Still, there’s an exception to consider. With yields at 15-year highs, you might want to build a ladder of individual bonds to lock in today’s yields. If you go this route, I’d offer one caution: Because the bond market is far more opaque than the stock market, the only type of bond I’d purchase individually would be U.S. Treasurys. Because of its size, the market for Treasurys is much less opaque. Remember, the bond market—unlike the stock market—has no centralized exchanges with quoted prices. That makes it much easier for professional bond traders to take advantage of individual investors. The upshot: For bonds other than Treasurys, I’d opt for a fund or, depending on the size of your portfolio, a dedicated bond manager. I wouldn’t try buying municipal, corporate or international bonds individually. Real estate. For many years, real estate seemed to only go up. But with elevated interest rates, some corners of the real estate market are seeing declines. This presents an opportunity for buyers. Intrigued? There are at least four key decisions to make. First, decide whether you want to participate via equity or debt. In other words, do you want to own a property, or do you want to be a lender to those who are buying properties? Second, if you opt to be an owner, decide whether you want to own property directly or through a fund. Owning a rental property directly generally results in much better economics for the investor. It also, however, means more work. There’s no right or wrong answer here, but it’s probably the most important decision for real estate investors. [xyz-ihs snippet="Holiday-Donate"] Third, decide how you want to allocate your available funds among properties. If you invest all your money in one single-family home, for example, you’ll gain simplicity but give up diversification. Choose a multi-family property or a collection of smaller homes, on the other hand, and you’ll have more to manage, but a problem with any one unit won’t be as damaging. Fourth, think about geography. If you’re managing a rental yourself, it’s ideal if it’s close by. On the other hand, if you don’t mind hiring a property manager, you might benefit from diversifying geographically. Stocks. In another survey I conducted this year, I asked readers whether a total stock market fund would be sufficient to fill an investor’s stock allocation. As with the bond survey, only a minority said yes, but the percentage was notably higher. In other words, more investors would be satisfied with a total market fund for stocks than for bonds. That result makes sense to me. As discussed above, the bond market is much more diverse, and certain types of bonds simply don’t make sense for certain investors. With stocks, that’s far less likely to be true, so investors’ best bet is to opt for broad diversification. Indeed, with stocks, the key risk is being too concentrated—in other words, being under-diversified. If you're reviewing your stock holdings, that’s the primary screen I recommend. Examine whether your stock holdings are too heavily weighted in one company, one industry or some narrow slice of the market. Because of the runup in technology shares, it’s not uncommon to see portfolios with a huge bet on a handful of stocks, such as Apple, Amazon and Microsoft. A variety of tools, including Morningstar’s X-Ray, make it easy to look under the hood of your portfolio and see risks like this. A final note. Across all asset classes, there’s another key decision to make: whether to invest only in publicly traded investments or to get involved with private funds. To be sure, private funds have an allure. But they’re also characterized by high fees, illiquidity, lack of transparency and often tax-inefficiency. That’s why the late David Swensen, who promoted the use of private funds during his long tenure running Yale University’s endowment—and had great success with that strategy—went out of his way to advise individual investors to do precisely the opposite. In fact, he wrote an entire book on the topic. As you think about investment choices for 2024, this is a key factor to keep in mind. Adam M. Grossman is the founder of Mayport, a fixed-fee wealth management firm. Sign up for Adam's Daily Ideas email, follow him on X (Twitter) @AdamMGrossman and check out his earlier articles. [xyz-ihs snippet="Donate"]

IS FINANCIAL PLANNING a product or a process? In other words, is a financial plan a document that you can print, bind and put on your shelf—or is it an ongoing activity? This is something of a religious debate within the finance community. Supporters of the “it's a product” view are usually dyed-in-the-wool financial planners. Not surprisingly, they believe that financial planning should result in a physical plan—an exhaustive, detailed document that’s full of analysis and projections. Meanwhile, supporters of the “it's a process” philosophy are usually people whose DNA leans more toward investing than planning. They prefer the action and excitement of the stock market and see financial planners as bean counters who spend too much time fine-tuning their spreadsheets. These folks believe most financial planning can be done on the fly and that the best plan is simply to find winning investments. To be fair, they might produce a chart or two, but then it’s off to the races with investments. Which group is right? Like most religious debates, each side makes valid points, but I also believe each is too extreme. The ideal solution, in my experience, blends both product and process. Others have made the analogy to a military battle plan. You wouldn’t rush onto a battlefield without a plan. But once there, you need to be flexible, because things never go exactly to plan. As long as you achieve your objectives, it's okay if your ultimate path deviates from your original plan. To me, that approach represents the ideal blend of product and process. Think of financial planning as involving three steps. Step No. 1: Plan. This is the “product” part of financial planning. As a first step, I always start with the “big four”—that is, your assets, liabilities, income and expenses. If you can get those basics on one or two pieces of paper, you'll be off to a great start. Continuing with the military analogy, these four variables tell you which way to march. Step No. 2: Prioritize. Managing your finances isn’t your fulltime job, so you want to focus first on your top priorities. These will be different for each person. But pressing issues might include a portfolio that’s too risky, insufficient life insurance, or a potential estate-tax bill that would outstrip a family's liquid assets and put the family business at risk. In my experience, if you can address these kinds of tasks right away, you’ll sleep easier—and then you can tackle the longer list of lower-priority items. Step No. 3: Proceed. This is where financial planning becomes a process. As life evolves, certain events will unfold just as you had hoped: getting married, having children, building your career, sending your children to college, celebrating their weddings, retiring. But many events will be unexpected. Some will be positive: professional success, a lucky investment or perhaps a large inheritance. And some will be negative, such as an illness or career setback. Because everyone will experience some mix of the positive and not-so-positive, it’s important that your plan is built with a margin for error and that you revisit it regularly. How regularly? In my experience, you want to update your plan at each life event that materially changes the “big four.” You’ll also want to mark your calendar to take certain steps in every tax year. Depending on your stage in life, this might be an IRA contribution or distribution, a 529 contribution, a charitable gift, exercising stock options or chipping away at a large, concentrated position in an investment. Adam M. Grossman’s previous articles include Free Lunch, Face Plant and Eye on the Ball. Adam is the founder of Mayport Wealth Management, a fixed-fee financial planning firm in Boston. He’s an advocate of evidence-based investing and is on a mission to lower the cost of investment advice for consumers. Follow Adam on Twitter @AdamMGrossman. [xyz-ihs snippet="Donate"]

CLAY COCKRELL HAS an unusual job. He describes himself as a psychotherapist treating the “1% of the 1%” in New York City. From this vantage point, Cockrell has gained unique insights into the lives of the extremely wealthy. What conclusions does he draw about money and happiness? “If you have an enemy,” Cockrell says, “go buy them a lottery ticket because, on the off-chance that they win, their life is going to be really messed up.” This observation fits well with the aphorism that “money doesn’t buy happiness.” There’s a growing body of research supporting this view. Lots of professional athletes run into financial distress, despite earning millions. Lottery winners seem like a particularly unfortunate lot. Even the neighbors of lottery winners end up worse off. But those who aren’t wealthy are quick to rebut claims that money doesn’t buy happiness. Having too little money can also carry negative consequences. If both too much and too little money can be problematic, where does that leave us? In researching this question, I wasn't surprised to learn that the single most popular class in the 318-year history of Yale University is called “Psychology and the Good Life.” The topic: happiness and how to achieve it. Each semester, more than 1,000 students enroll. This suggests that most people’s ultimate goal isn’t to accumulate the most dollars. Rather, it’s to accumulate maximum happiness. Does this mean there’s no connection between money and happiness? Far from it. It's just that the relationship is complex. Consider three insights from the research: 1. Money does indeed buy happiness—but to a limited extent. If you earn $40,000, you’ll definitely feel happier if you get a raise. But those benefits top out more quickly than you might expect—at around $75,000. People who earn $500,000 are indeed happier than those who earn $50,000, but not 10 times happier. The same applies to retirees: Those with $1 million in the bank are certainly happier than those with $100,000, but the happiness benefits aren’t proportional to the sum involved. The lesson: You should work hard and save diligently, but be aware of what’s known as the "arrival fallacy." This is the tendency to say to ourselves, “I’ll be happy when _____.” Clay Cockrell describes one patient who had $500 million, but really wanted to get to $1 billion to feel truly secure. That’s an extreme case, but you get the point: We would all like a few more dollars, but the evidence suggests that—unless you’re truly destitute—it probably won’t help. While you might find this conclusion discouraging, I think it’s comforting. It means that the road to greater happiness doesn’t necessarily require more money. 2. How you spend your money is far more important than how much you have. According to retirement researcher Michael Finke, the best way to spend your money is in ways that bring you greater socialization. We should invest in friendships, even if it means traveling long distances. That’s money well spent. Time with grandchildren also increases happiness. While Finke wouldn't recommend buying an expensive toy like an antique car, he points out that the litmus test should be socialization. If you drive the car by yourself, it does no good. But if it brings you into contact with other classic car enthusiasts, that could be beneficial. 3. In retirement, guaranteed income may be more valuable than higher income. According to a happiness survey by Towers Watson, workers with pensions, annuities or other reliable income sources experience lower levels of anxiety than those who rely entirely on their investment portfolios during retirement, regardless of the portfolio’s size. This is an extremely important point. In many cases, people make financial decisions only through the lens of maximizing wealth. But what this study shows is that maximizing peace of mind is actually a more important goal. How can you structure your finances to achieve greater peace of mind? There’s a number of ways—and often they run contrary to conventional wisdom. Annuities, for example, have a bad reputation due to their fees, complexity and inherent longevity gamble. But if you want a secure retirement, a low-cost annuity might not be such a bad idea. By the same token, many investors today prefer to maintain higher allocations to stocks, instead of earning thin yields in the bond market. But if you don’t need to take additional stock market risk, maybe it makes sense to adopt a more defensive posture. In other words, don’t worry about forgoing potential upside in the stock market. Instead, focus on the increased peace of mind you’ll achieve in the bond market. Many years ago, I knew an investor who preferred to keep $1 million in his checking account at all times. While conventional wisdom would say this was irrational, I always felt it made perfect sense. You alone are the best judge of what will help you sleep at night. Adam M. Grossman’s previous articles include Yet Another Reason, Peter Principles and But Will It Work. Adam is the founder of Mayport Wealth Management, a fixed-fee financial planning firm in Boston. He’s an advocate of evidence-based investing and is on a mission to lower the cost of investment advice for consumers. Follow Adam on Twitter @AdamMGrossman. [xyz-ihs snippet="Donate"]

IN THE INVESTMENT world, inflation is the topic of the day. There are four key reasons: Congress. Since March 2020, the federal government has dropped more than a trillion dollars of cash into the economy via stimulus checks and the Paycheck Protection Program. While many of the recipients were unemployed and needed these dollars to meet basic needs, others were not. The result: More money in people’s pockets allowed them to spend more, pushing up prices for many products. Many of these stimulus dollars also found their way into the stock market, which has helped lift share prices. This newly created wealth, in turn, has helped drive up prices for some big-ticket items, including houses. The Fed. Last year, the Federal Reserve announced a policy shift. Going forward, the central bank plans to put less emphasis on controlling inflation and more emphasis on maintaining full employment. The Fed will, in fact, permit inflation to run a little hotter than it might have in the past. In recent statements, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell reiterated this stance, even as he acknowledged that super-low interest rates and a recovering economy are causing prices to rise. Fear. In recent years, inflation has been very low by historical standards—often below 2%. Still, it wasn’t all that long ago that inflation was north of 10%, contributing to the economic malaise of the 1970s. We’ve all read about the disastrous effects of high inflation in other countries. When Congress recently approved plans to spend another trillion dollars on infrastructure and other initiatives, people started worrying more. Expectations. Since the pandemic began, the Federal Reserve has held its federal funds rate near zero and has communicated that it plans to leave it at that level for at least a few more years. What do interest rates have to do with inflation? Implicit in the Fed’s position is the belief that the economy will remain weak enough to require the support of continued low interest rates. By extension, if the economy is weak, inflation should also remain low. That’s the Fed’s view. But investors seem to disagree. From a low around 0.5% last summer, the rate on 10-year Treasury notes climbed above 1.7% in recent weeks and ended Friday at 1.59%. When market interest rates jump like this, it’s an indirect sign that investors see inflation coming. In other words, investors aren’t buying the Fed’s assertion that inflation will remain low in the coming years. If there’s reason to believe that higher inflation might be on its way, how can you protect your portfolio? Below I’ll describe how inflation normally affects three key asset classes: bonds, stocks and gold. Bonds. Because most bonds make fixed interest payments, they’re a poor investment when inflation starts rising. The only exceptions are floating-rate bonds, which are somewhat rare, and a few flavors of U.S. government bonds, including Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS), which I recommend. TIPS are directly tied to the consumer price index. This guarantees that their interest payments will keep up with inflation. How exactly do TIPS work? Twice a year, the government adjusts the price of TIPS bonds. When inflation is higher, it marks the price up. Interest payments are then recalculated using the bond’s new, higher price. But TIPS aren’t an entirely free lunch. When there's deflation, the government marks down the price of TIPS bonds, resulting in lower interest payments. Upon maturity, however, holders never get less than a bond's original principal value. [xyz-ihs snippet="Mobile-Subscribe"] When you buy a TIPS bond, there is an inflation rate implied—often called the “breakeven rate.” Today, that breakeven rate is around 2.3%. If inflation turns out to be higher down the road, you’ll do better with TIPS than with regular Treasury bonds. On the other hand, if inflation is lower, you’ll be worse off. That’s why I recommend diversifying, holding both standard and inflation-protected bonds. If you own a total bond market fund, it’s important to know that these funds don’t include TIPS. They include only standard Treasury bonds. If you own only a total market fund, I would supplement it with a separate TIPS holding. Stocks. These are much more resilient when inflation strikes. To understand why, consider this thought experiment: Suppose you’re the chief executive of an auto manufacturer. In ordinary times, it costs you $20,000 to make each car. You then add on 50% for the company's profit and sell them for $30,000. If you sell a million cars a year and earn $10,000 on each, your total company profits will be $10 billion. Now suppose inflation hits, and suddenly your costs rise by 25%. Instead of $20,000, it costs you $25,000 to build each car. To maintain the same profit margin, you tack on 50% and sell each one for $37,500. If you still sell a million cars, but your profit margin is now $12,500 per car, your total company profits will rise to $12.5 billion. That’s exactly 25% higher than your company’s profits were before inflation struck. And since—all else being equal—share prices follow corporate profits, your company’s stock price should also rise by 25%, right in line with inflation. This is a simplified example, but that’s the basic idea. As long as a company can raise its own prices to keep up with inflation, its stock price should keep up with inflation as well. To be sure, there are caveats. Some companies will find it harder to raise prices. But overall, stocks are, in my opinion, investors’ best protection against inflation. Gold. In the 1970s, when inflation was running high in the U.S., gold enjoyed a golden era, climbing from about $100 per ounce in 1976 to more than $700 in 1980. Ever since, gold has enjoyed a reputation as an ideal hedge against inflation. But unfortunately, it’s also been a poor long-term investment. Following that peak in 1980, gold dropped—and took 27 years to reclaim its prior high. On top of that, aside from that one period in the 1970s, gold has demonstrated very little correlation with inflation. As I’ve noted before, gold lacks intrinsic value, meaning that it doesn’t generate any income. That’s in contrast to other major types of assets. Many stocks produce dividends, bonds produce interest and real estate produces rent—but gold produces nothing. That’s why it shouldn’t be any surprise that its price meanders aimlessly over time, much like bitcoin, and for the same reason. Both are viewed as inflation hedges. But in both cases, I believe it's a mirage. Adam M. Grossman is the founder of Mayport, a fixed-fee wealth management firm. In his series of free e-books, he advocates an evidence-based approach to personal finance. Follow Adam on Twitter @AdamMGrossman and check out his earlier articles. [xyz-ihs snippet="Donate"]

IT'S FIVE WEEKS UNTIL the end of the year—which is five weeks during which you can do some valuable financial housekeeping. Here are seven recommendations: 1. Give tax efficiently. In the past, charitable contributions were a direct and easy way to lower your tax bill. But with the recent tax law changes, which include a big hike in the standard deduction and limits on some itemized deductions, this strategy doesn't work as well. My suggestion: Consider opening a donor-advised fund and making contributions using an every-other-year strategy, so you're more likely to get a tax break for your generosity. 2. Claim your Social Security account. The Social Security Administration has an excellent website that provides easy access to your benefits statement. I urge you to sign up for two reasons. First, to build a complete retirement plan, you need to know what size benefit to expect from Social Security. If you're married, or ever were married, you're likely entitled to a spousal benefit, which you'll want to research as well. Second, Social Security is, unfortunately, susceptible to fraud. There have been cases where thieves have successfully applied for and received benefits under someone else's name. No one is immune to fraud. But when you set up your online account—and secure it with two-factor authentication—you lower the likelihood of this happening. 3. Audit your portfolio (1). Around year-end, the conventional wisdom is to conduct tax-loss harvesting—that is, scour your taxable investment account for losses in an effort to trim your tax bill. While that’s a worthy exercise, I also recommend a different kind of harvesting: Thin out the chaff—the inferior or overpriced investments—that may be hiding among your investments. While everyone hates taxes, don’t let the tax tail wag the investment dog. In other words, don't be so allergic to paying capital gains taxes that you suffer for prolonged periods with subpar investments. 4. Audit your portfolio (2). In the past, I’ve compared mutual fund companies to junk food manufacturers, constantly churning out new, unnecessary and unnecessarily expensive variations on existing funds. Over time, especially if you work with a broker, these types of investments may accumulate in your portfolio. In an article last year, I outlined a four-part litmus test for evaluating investments. My recommendation: If you have some downtime over the holidays, take an hour to scrub your portfolio using my litmus test. If an investment doesn't make any sense to you, contact your broker and ask him or her to explain it. If your broker’s explanation doesn't make any sense, consider selling. 5. Audit your portfolio (3). After several years of mostly steady gains, markets in the U.S. have become more volatile over the past two months. While this can be unnerving, I see a silver lining: It’s a gentle reminder that the stock market can go down as easily as it can go up—perhaps more easily. Consider the performance of some of the market's favorite stocks this year: Apple is down nearly 26% since the beginning of October, Facebook is down more than 39% since the summer, and chip maker NVIDIA is down a sobering 50% from its high. No one can predict where the market will go next, but you definitely can reduce risk by ensuring you don't have outsized exposure to any one investment. 6. Hedge your bets on estate taxes. One benefit of the 2017 tax overhaul is that federal estate taxes now impact far fewer families. Still, as I pointed out last week, there’s no guarantee this will always be the case. If you have substantial assets, I still recommend making regular annual gifts to your children. In 2018, you can give $15,000 to as many people as you want without any tax consequences. If you have a multi-million-dollar net worth, this may not sound like a lot. But suppose you're married and have three children. You could give your children a total of $90,000 ($15,000 x 2 parents x 3 children) every year without any impact on your lifetime federal estate tax exclusion. 7. Visit your accountant. During tax season, accountants are so inundated with work that they can barely keep their heads above water. At this time of year, though, they're happy to have visitors. My suggestion: If you use a CPA, take an hour to sit down with him or her and revisit your 2017 tax return. Ask your accountant to walk you through it, and ask for observations and recommendations. Understand the key drivers of your tax bill and ask what steps you could take to reduce it this year. Even if you don't walk away with any real savings opportunities, it’ll be an hour well spent, because it will give you an opportunity to learn the basic mechanics of a tax return. Adam M. Grossman’s previous articles include Deadly Serious, Five Messy Steps, Hole Story and Seeking Zero. Adam is the founder of Mayport Wealth Management, a fixed-fee financial planning firm in Boston. He’s an advocate of evidence-based investing and is on a mission to lower the cost of investment advice for consumers. Follow Adam on Twitter @AdamMGrossman. [xyz-ihs snippet="Donate"]

MY FATHER-IN-LAW—known to his family as Papa—passed away earlier this month. After 96 years, he had developed a number of money habits that were unconventional but quite effective, including these three: 1. Focused frugality. Papa was frugal, but not in the conventional sense. He didn’t practice extreme frugality and saw no virtue in intentional self-denial. Rather, he practiced what I would call focused frugality. If something was important—his children’s education, for example—he was happy to write that check. He also loved to travel. In those cases, Papa left frugality at the door. But for everything else, he stretched a dollar as far as it would go. And that ended up being remarkably far. In his later years, I served as my father-in-law’s informal financial advisor. During one of our periodic reviews, he asked what I thought about his asset allocation—that is, his split between stocks and other assets. I responded with a standard question asked by financial planners: “How much do you need to withdraw from your account each year?” His reply was one I had never heard before—certainly not from a retiree. “What do you mean by need?” he asked. After some more discussion, I realized that, even in his late 80s, his retirement accounts remained untouched, other than for required minimum distributions. How did he accomplish this? In large part, I believe, it was this focused frugality. The lesson: A penny saved is a penny earned. Even if you spend freely with one part of your budget, that doesn’t mean you need to abandon frugality altogether. You can take nice vacations and drive a nice car, and still clip coupons. These are not mutually exclusive. In fact, I see them as symbiotic. When you economize ruthlessly in one area, that allows you to spend freely in other areas. 2. “Inefficient” debt management. It would be an overstatement to say my father-in-law hated debt. But having grown up in North Africa, he simply wasn’t accustomed to it. He took out a mortgage to buy a home but, other than that, I don’t think he ever carried a dime of debt: no credit cards, no car loans, no home-equity line of credit, nothing. In America, where consumers hold almost $14 trillion of debt, this certainly made him unusual. I always found this interesting, because any personal finance textbook will tell you that debt, used wisely, is not necessarily a bad thing. Conventional wisdom, in fact, states that consumers should be happy to borrow money when it enables them to invest and earn potentially higher returns. Papa, however, wasn't interested in what the textbook said. He took a much more straightforward approach. He would buy something only if he could pay cash. What if he couldn't? The purchase would simply have to wait. The lesson: In theory, it’s inefficient to avoid debt. But my father-in-law was not the only one to realize that “efficiency” is just a textbook concept. In the real world, there are many benefits to limiting debt. There’s the peace-of-mind benefit. But there's another, more subtle advantage: When you stick to cash for major purchases, the inevitable result is that you end up spending less. In fact, research has found that consumers spend up to 50% less when they use cash instead of a credit card. Looking to trim your budget? Try leaving your credit cards at home for a week. 3. “Inefficient” asset allocation. For a retiree in his or her 80s or 90s, a typical asset allocation would consist mainly of bonds. My father-in-law, however, never saw the appeal of bonds and instead limited his portfolio to stocks and cash. Was this inefficient? Yes, perhaps he could have earned more by owning bonds instead of cash. But this is what he preferred. The lesson: The definition of the “best” investment portfolio isn’t necessarily the one that offers the greatest profit potential. The best portfolio, especially for a do-it-yourself investor, is the one that is easy to set up, easy to manage and allows you to reach your goals. You run a far greater risk trying to make your portfolio “sophisticated” than by simplifying it. Never forget: Simple doesn’t mean simplistic. Adam M. Grossman’s previous articles include Fact vs. Fantasy, Out of Stock and Say No to Mo. Adam is the founder of Mayport Wealth Management, a fixed-fee financial planning firm in Boston. He’s an advocate of evidence-based investing and is on a mission to lower the cost of investment advice for consumers. Follow Adam on Twitter @AdamMGrossman. [xyz-ihs snippet="Donate"]