Axiom | Vol 263

Markets Stay Hot As 10 Year Drops

Meet The Axiom®’s Guest Editor: Jason Ganiere, CFP®

Hello, I’m Jason Ganiere, a Wealth Manager at Annex Wealth Management.

I have been with Annex since 2013 and specialize in working with government employees since I worked in municipal law enforcement for 27 years. I have a strong understanding of the unique planning needs of clients with government pension and benefits.

I have been married for over 20 years and my wife and I have two daughters and have been longtime New Berlin residents. We enjoy spending time with family and going Up North to ski, hike, ATV and just relax.

“I enjoy the Axiom because it breaks down what can be complex financial planning topics into small bites of information which are easy to digest on a Sunday morning. I also appreciate that Annex always uses current events to highlight the topics which are covered in the Axiom.”

– Guest Editor: Jason Ganiere, CFP® | Wealth Manager
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Markets Stay Hot As 10 Year Drops

The Fed continued to demonstrate that it believes inflation is transitory – and the bond market may agree. The 10 year fell as markets continued to rise. Annex Wealth Management’s Mark Beck and Derek Felske discuss how the second half of the year may not perform the same as the first.

Poll Recap: Who Will Get To Space First? If You Were Given A Golden Ticket, Would You Join Them On Their Trip To Space?

Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson have at least two things in common – they’re both self-made billionaires, and they’re both using their billions to get to space.

Branson, owner of Virgin Records, Virgin Atlantic, and other ventures, launched Virgin Galactic in 2004. Bezos, founder of Amazon and the world’s wealthiest person, founded Blue Origin in 2000.

Suborbital Space Tourism

Both Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic have plans to transport tourists on short, suborbital flights to the edge of space, about 80 to 100 kilometers above the Earth, where they will experience a few minutes of weightlessness.

Bezo’s Blue Origin will use a rocket to launch passengers in its New Shepard capsule into space. Branson’s Virgin Galactic will transport passengers in a SpaceShipTwo suborbital spaceplane.

In our latest poll, we asked readers “Who will get to space first?” Between Bezos and Branson, the responses where almost split but readers slightly favored Branson’s Virgin Galactic at 53%.

Branson reaching space first might be a reality, as he recently announced Virgin Galactic will run a test spaceflight on July 11. That’s more than a week before Bezos plans to complete his own spaceflight.

We also asked readers “If you were given a golden ticket, would you join them on their trip to space?” – to which the majority of respondents answered no. Actually, most chose “No. Like a thousand million times no.” 17% answered “Yes, hand me the helmet now!”

Do you have $200,000 laying around? If so, you might be able to get your hands on a Virgin Galactic ticket, which Branson has already begun selling.

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Ask Questions Regarding Family Properties

A family vacation home, hunting land or family farm can present a new set of challenges and complexities to estate planning. Bank or retirement accounts can easily be divided among heirs. Real estate needs to be co-owned among surviving family.

Work on “YOUR” estate plan allows you to make decisions without family input. When you’re focusing on family property, the family vacation property, hunting land or a family farm, it’s critical to involve the next generation. Careful, thoughtful planning helps build awareness of the rules, complexity and legal responsibility that comes with the co-ownership.

This week’s Money Do: Start A Conversation About the Family Property. We will give you some talking points that will help facilitate a family conversation on how to plan for passing that special property as a family legacy.

Before we get into the discussion about how to evaluate your options with family, make sure your financial plan is sustainable, and that you can continue to maintain the property over the long term. Once you’re confident your plan is on solid ground, then you can open the conversation with the following questions:

1. Who should receive the property? vs. Who wants the property?

While all of your children may enjoy the property and recognize it as a source of many great memories, there’s a chance your child may end up with their own vacation home and aren’t interested in partial ownership of yours when that time comes.

2. How much are the property’s annual, ongoing expenses?

How will those be paid for by future owners after you are gone?
Are the new owners going to be required to contribute equally to those expenses?
Are you going to leave cash to those as well to help offset future maintenance?
Are they 100% responsible going forward from their own pockets?

3. If there are multiple family members, what will be the rules for use or other important decisions that may arise?

Who uses it when? It may not work well if everyone wants the week of July 4th!
What about if grandchildren or friends want to use the property?

4. When will you pass the asset on to the next generation? During life or after death?

5. What should the ownership structure be?

Tenants in Common
Trust
an LLC
What is the difference between those structures on transferability and liability for each successive generation?

As you start to gather answers to some of the key questions, it will be important to check in with your financial advisor and work with an estate planning attorney to get the legal documents in place to set up your plan.

While these five questions are a good starting place, there are quite a few more factors that can be important to consider as well, and if you’d like to learn more, make sure to be on the lookout for one of Annex Wealth Management’s “Saving The Family Cottage” workshops later this fall.

This week’s Ask Annex comes from Chris, who asks:

“What impact does inflation have on the US dollar?”

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We asked Annex Wealth Management’s Todd Voit, PhD:

Fluctuation in exchange rates, in this case the U.S. dollar, are primarily influenced by three things:

Expected economic growth differentials
Expected interest rates differential
Expected inflation rate differentials

I emphasize the words “expected” and “differential” to make the point: It’s not about absolute levels of interest or inflation rates, it’s about the “rate”, the change in rates and the difference between two country’s “rates”.

If the U.S. economy is expected to experience slower growth relative to other countries, the dollar is expected to be weaker over the next year. If real interest rates are expected to fall relative to another country’s interest rate, the dollar is expected to be weaker. If U.S. inflation is expected to rise relative to other countries, the dollar is expected to be weaker, and the exchange rate adjusts accordingly.

So, more directly to the question, what impact does inflation have on the U.S. dollar? Short answer is higher inflation relative to other countries implies a weaker dollar. Depending on whether that’s true or not is a matter of someone’s opinion and ours is that we’re likely to see weakening in the U.S. dollar, however, between now and the of the year you will see a resurgence in the variance of COVID and likewise a stronger U.S. dollar.

A weaker dollar also implies higher inflation. Cause and effect cuts both ways – U.S. consumers have a fairly high propensity to consume imported goods so as foreign prices rise (because the dollar is weaker), domestic producers can raise prices and still remain competitive.

Let me know if you have any further questions.

Hope this helps,

Todd Voit, PhD