Buy Back Your Time

If you’ve been saving and investing for years, one question eventually comes up: “Am I actually on the right track?”

Many investors have multiple accounts—401(k)s, IRAs, brokerage accounts—but rarely step back to see how everything fits together. That’s why we offer a Free Portfolio Analysis and 1,000-Foot View Financial Plan.

This complimentary review looks at the big picture of your financial life, including:

• Your overall investment allocation • Hidden risks or portfolio overlap • Fees that may be reducing returns • How your investments align with your long-term goals

Think of it as a financial second opinion—a chance to step back and make sure your strategy is built for the future.

If you’d like clarity and confidence about where you stand, schedule your free portfolio analysis today.

Click here to schedule a meeting — I’m here to help you take the next step toward financial freedom.

Dream Bigger, Sleep Better

Luke Lloyd, CEO Lloyd Financial Group

Run Your Household Like a Business

Most people would never run a $1 million business completely by themselves.

They’d have an accountant. An attorney. An insurance professional. Maybe a technology person, a marketing expert, and a consultant or two.

But when it comes to their personal finances, many successful people suddenly become a one-person company.

They manage their own investments. File their own taxes. Review their insurance. Try to figure out estate planning. Make retirement projections. Research Social Security. Pick investments. And then attempt to make all of those decisions work together.

At some point, you have to ask yourself:

Why am I running my household differently than I would run my business?

Think of Your Household as a Business

Your income is the revenue.

Your expenses are operating costs.

Your investment portfolio is the balance sheet.

Your home, retirement accounts, business interests, and other assets are capital.

Your mortgage and other debt are liabilities.

Your insurance is risk management.

Your estate plan is your succession plan.

And retirement?

That’s essentially the day you stop collecting a paycheck from your business and start living off the assets you’ve accumulated.

Once you look at your finances this way, something becomes obvious:

You need a management team.

You Don’t Have to Do Everything Yourself

A business owner doesn’t hire an accountant because they’re incapable of adding numbers.

They hire one because their time is better spent elsewhere—and because a professional may see things they don’t.

The same principle applies to your household.

You could manage your entire investment portfolio yourself. You could spend hours researching tax strategies. You could compare insurance policies. You could build your own retirement projections.

But the question isn’t necessarily, “Can I do this myself?”

The better question is:

“Is this the best use of my time, and am I confident I’m seeing the entire picture?”

That’s where the right financial advisor can add value.

The Financial Advisor as the CEO’s Advisor

A good financial advisor shouldn’t simply be the person who picks your investments.

They should help you understand how all the pieces fit together.

Should you contribute more to your 401(k) or Roth?

Should you pay down the mortgage or invest?

When should you claim Social Security?

How much can you safely spend in retirement?

Should you convert some traditional IRA money to Roth?

How much insurance do you actually need?

What happens to your assets if you die?

How can investment decisions affect your taxes?

These aren’t isolated questions. They’re interconnected business decisions inside your household.

That’s why having someone who can coordinate the big picture can be so valuable.

Build a Board of Directors

You don’t necessarily need every professional under one roof.

Your household might have a financial advisor, CPA, estate attorney, insurance professional, and other specialists.

The important thing is that someone understands how the pieces interact.

Think of it like a company’s board of directors.

Each person brings a different area of expertise. But someone needs to keep everyone focused on the same objective.

Your objective isn’t to beat an index.

It’s to build a financial life that allows you to live the way you want, protect what you’ve built, and eventually transfer it to the people and causes that matter most.

The Ultimate Goal: Buy Back Your Time

This may be the biggest reason to run your household like a business.

You don’t accumulate wealth just to spend more time managing it.

You accumulate wealth so that your money can give you something far more valuable:

freedom.

Freedom to spend time with your family.

Freedom to retire when you want.

Freedom to pursue something you enjoy.

Freedom to take a vacation without worrying about the portfolio.

Freedom to make a major life decision without wondering whether you’re financially ruining yourself.

The wealthy understand something that is easy to overlook:

The goal isn’t to become an expert at everything. It’s to surround yourself with people who are experts at the things that matter.

Your household may not technically be a business.

But if you’ve spent decades building a million-dollar-plus financial life, perhaps it’s time to start managing it like one.

Build the team. Delegate the expertise. Keep your eye on the big picture. And let your money go back to doing what you worked so hard to make it do—buying you freedom.

Click here to schedule a meeting — I’m here to help you take the next step toward financial freedom.

Colin Symons, CIO Lloyd Financial Group

Usually, the market has a point where attention is focused. Where that focal point goes helps push around the asset universe. In this case, I’d say it’s the rate complex, both short and long-end yields. Rates are a fundamentally important area anyway, as what rates do have a fundamental impact everywhere, from the dollar to asset preferences. We’ve certainly seen the dollar move around quite a bit, lately, as the market assesses the situation.

I view the recent dollar reaction largely as noise. We went up an awful lot on Friday and now are giving some of that back. To me, the market is just searching for the appropriate level. As is often the case, the market likely priced in a worst-case scenario to start. A lot of that is from the question of when and if the Fed hikes rates. If rates go up, the dollar is worth more.

As for the question of an imminent rate hike, there’s a lot of data between now and the next Fed meeting. We have JOLTS, ISM, and Payrolls coming this week. Then the Treasury buyback program starts on September 9th. All that probably helps push where the dollar and rates go for the next few weeks.

This is as much a guess as anything, but I’d expect the dollar to be lower over time. The near-term data probably won’t be enough to push odds enough to shift rate expectations higher and the Treasury program should relax the long-end of the yield curve. If not, though, if we can’t relax the yield curve, that’s going to hurt risk assets.

There’s always a question of how you want to deal with these issues, and that’s always a question of your time horizon. If you care about every wiggle, you’d have constant ups and downs. If you’re trying to get yourself in good position but don’t want to face much risk, you can set levels and see if they break.

From my longer-term perspective, I’d say we’re still around arguably important levels. The longer-term yields in particular are a focus and if we start losing these levels, that’s a worry. Where you draw these levels, exactly, is always a question. For my part I generally try to give markets relatively large amount of range and time. I think the positions we’re in make sense, and I hate to lose them because of some temporary volatility.

Thus, for me, I’m watching and waiting. The market is pushing some extremes on low volume. To me, that’s more about shaking the tree to see who falls out instead of a real signal. That can certainly change, and we could get forced to become more conservative, but I’m planning on waiting for that to happen.

As Tom Petty would say, the waiting is the hardest part. If you have an expected holding period of a year or longer, there is almost certainly going to come a time that stresses your belief in that position. In order to get the benefits of those long-term holds, it helps a great deal to have a process to deal with what may be noise or may be signal. For now, I wait and I watch.

Dallas Fed Manufacturing was 11.6 vs. prev. 1.3. Production and New Orders improved, though Prices remain high.

September is starting roughly, as two tankers were struck in the Strait of Hormuz, sending oil up 2% and risk assets down.

Japan’s 10Y yield touched 3% for the first time this century.

Insurer AON was down -10% after they acquired USI Insurance Services from KKR for $17B.

Novartis (NVS) is up 4% on positive clinical data for an MS drug.

Manufacturing PMI and JOLTS today.

Bottom line: Oil is once again encouraging a risk off stance

Click here to schedule a meeting — I’m here to help you take the next step toward financial freedom.

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Past performance is no guarantee of future returns.

Different types of investments involve varying degrees of risk. Therefore, it should not be assumed that future performance of any specific investment or investment strategy will be profitable