Important Financial Decisions | Legislation and Municipal Bonds & Stocks after Major Events 

Who you marry is the single biggest financial decision you’ll make in your life. In many ways, your partner influences:

• Your ability to save
• Your relationship with work
• Where you spend money
• What brings you enjoyment (based on whether you did or didn’t spend)
• What your long-term vision will look like

If you’ve been married, you’ve likely experienced this, for better or for worse. Much of our work as advisors is aimed at helping married couples position money as a healthy influence on their family–an enabler of the family’s vision and values.

For those who are not yet married, we encourage you to talk to couples who have strong marriages. Ask them about how they approach money. You’ll get a variety of answers, but I think you’ll find a few common traits:

1. Transparency. Dishonest financial behaviors can easily end marriages.
2. Values. Couples who protect and promote core values around money, even if they don’t have the same outlet for spending.
3. Compromise. Money is a finite resource. Make space for one another.
4. Self-Control. Financial health is equal parts what you say yes to and what you say no to.
5. Partnership.  Ultimately, see your marriage as a united front; the work you do to keep you and your family more important than the financial resources you have.

None of us are too old to revisit these principles, but if you have younger, unmarried people in your life, we encourage you to model these behaviors and, where appropriate, engage in conversation to help the next generation learn from your experience.

Upcoming Tax Changes: It’s no secret that recent legislation is leading to tax changes. It is yet to be determined what the final version of these changes will be. However, as it relates to the municipal bond market for high-income earners, it doesn’t appear to have a great impact. This article by Charles Schwab is a helpful and detailed telling of where things currently are for this aspect of the markets.

Major Events and the Markets: There is never a lack of headlines announcing the current state of the world. In our line of business, we are consistently tracking how these events affect the markets. We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: volatility in the markets is normal. A market correction of 10% happens most years, and sometimes more than once. They are more normal than you might think.

This table shows geopolitical events over the last 80+ years, along with the median performance of the S&P 500 over the following year. Context here is important. The median return is a bit lower than the historical average return overall, but the average return is also weaker than the median return for these events.