Financial literacy refers to the skills and knowledge that allow an individual to make informed and effective decisions through their understanding of finances. Financial literacy starts by building a basic understanding of ‘money matters’ to create a sense of economic well-being, self-trust, and financial confidence. The principles of financial literacy include:

Saving

Saving is preparing for the future through actions such as:

• Saving consistently into a savings account

• Saving for large purchases

• Increasing your retirement savings each time you get a raise

• Having a fully-funded emergency fund with three to six months of living expenses saved

Managing Debt

Managing debt includes repaying and avoiding debt through actions such as:

• Seeking out the lowest interest rates when borrowing

• Paying off credit card balances each month

• Consistently making on-time credit payments

• Avoiding bankruptcy by working with a credit counselor when debt becomes overwhelming

Investing

Investing for the future helps prepare a financially secure retirement through actions such as:

• Participating in your employer-sponsored retirement plan

• Financial planning

• Working with a financial professional

• Having adequate insurance to preserve your ‘nest egg.’

• Investing in after-tax strategies

Financial Literacy also includes having a basic understanding of how to pay bills online, manage bank accounts, manage debt, fill out income tax withholding forms at work, and other money-related actions. Where can individuals learn financial literacy?

Financial Literacy Through Licensed Professionals

A financial professional, Certified Public Accountant (CPA), or a financial literacy instructor can provide education on financial concepts to help increase financial literacy. Financial professionals should first educate to help individuals make informed decisions later.

Financial Literacy at Work

When employees can attend workplace classes on budgeting, saving, and investing, they are more likely to save for retirement and not live beyond their means. These classes are commonly conducted by the financial professional that oversees the company’s retirement plan, the HR Department, and other financial literacy educators.

Financial Literacy at School

Currently, 23 states require a financial literacy class to graduate from high school (2022 Survey of the States). Financial literacy experts know that teaching students how to manage their income and expenses and giving them a basic understanding of financial concepts will enable them to have financial success regardless of their future income.

Having trained teachers who know financial literacy content can help develop better credit behaviors early, even if offered through the school system, which leads to making on-time payments and understanding how to manage debt and credit.

Financial literacy through free resources- Look for free tools available to you through your bank or credit card company to help you monitor your spending and credit score. Also, check online for financial literacy apps through The Motley Fool’s Best Financial Literacy Apps for 2022.

Financial literacy affects all ages and all socioeconomic levels. It’s up to all of us to improve financial literacy here in the U.S. if we are to move away from being a debt-ridden society and toward being a society with financial security.

Important Disclosures

The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual.

All information is believed to be from reliable sources; however LPL Financial makes no representation as to its completeness or accuracy.

This article was prepared by Fresh Finance.

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Spring can be a fantastic time to refresh your retirement plan and savings habits. With 2023 bringing increased limits for 401(k)s, individual retirement accounts (IRAs), Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), and other tax-advantaged accounts, it’s worth taking a closer look at your retirement savings. Below, we discuss three ways to refresh your retirement plan this spring.

Maintain Consistent Savings

With inflation taking a bite out of just about everyone’s paychecks, it can sometimes be tempting to decrease the amount you’re contributing to retirement just to gain a bit of breathing room. However, maintaining a consistent rate of savings even through lean times can go a long way toward securing your financial future. When it comes to saving for retirement, time is on your side—and the more you can contribute at a younger age, the more time this money will have to grow.

If your savings rate has been at the same level for more than a few years, it may be time to revisit this contribution. You may discover that you can afford to set aside a little more; in other cases, it may make sense to switch from a tax-deferred account to a post-tax account like a Roth 401(k) or Roth IRA.

Review Your Asset Allocation

 

When it comes to investing for retirement through an employer plan, the options available to you may sometimes seem overwhelming. Far beyond mere “stocks vs. bonds,” employees are asked to choose from accounts ranging from growth to stability, domestic to international, and tech to blue chips. For some plans, the default option is to put contributions into a money market account rather than investing them in the stock market.

Does your asset allocation appropriately reflect your risk tolerance and investment timeline? It can be tough to know.

Fortunately, you don’t have to do it alone. A financial professional can work with you on your strategies and goals, making adjustments where necessary to keep you on the right path. Don’t wait until you get closer to retirement to realize you haven’t been investing as efficiently as you would have liked.

Check Your Beneficiaries

 

One last thing that is important to keep an eye on involves the disposition of your assets once you’ve passed away.

Many financial accounts like 401(k)s, IRAs, and even some bank accounts may require you to name a beneficiary. And for life insurance policies, the beneficiary is key—this is the person to whom the benefits pass, regardless what a marriage decree or executed will may say to the contrary.

If you’ve gotten married or divorced, had children recently, or if it’s been more than a year since you evaluated your beneficiary designations, it’s important to revisit each of your financial accounts to ensure your beneficiary designations continue to reflect your wishes. In many cases, a surviving family member has discovered too late that their loved one named an ex-spouse or estranged family member as their beneficiary, leaving those who depend on them in the lurch.

Important Disclosures

The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. To determine which investment(s) may be appropriate for you, consult your financial professional prior to investing.

Investing involves risks including possible loss of principal. No investment strategy or risk management technique can guarantee return or eliminate risk in all market environments.

The Roth IRA offers tax deferral on any earnings in the account. Withdrawals from the account may be tax free, as long as they are considered qualified. Limitations and restrictions may apply. Withdrawals prior to age 59 ½ or prior to the account being opened for 5 years, whichever is later, may result in a 10% IRS penalty tax. Future tax laws can change at any time and may impact the benefits of Roth IRAs. Their tax treatment may change.

An investment in the Money Market Fund is not insured or guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation or any other government agency. Although the Fund seeks to preserve the value of your investment at $1.00 per share, it is possible to lose money by investing in the Fund.

Asset allocation does not ensure a profit or protect against a loss.

This article was prepared by WriterAccess.

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When spring rolls around, your thoughts might turn to organizing your closets or giving your floors a good deep clean. But how much thought have you given to cleaning up your finances? If the answer is “not much,” you might want to reconsider.

Spring is a great in-between time of year to take stock of your financial health and to create goals for the rest of the year—or to plan for the years ahead.

But before you dive headfirst into any new financial plan, you need to take a look at the current state of your finances. Are they where you want them to be? Have you had trouble putting enough away to account for the unexpected? The steps below can help you get started.

Step 1: Write it all down.

A coffee here, a new pair of shoes there; when you go about your life as usual, you don’t typically think about how much you’re spending. But even small purchases on a frequent basis can add up. Take a month to jot down or create a digital spreadsheet of all your expenses, including mortgage or rent payments, utility bills, groceries, subscription services, and miscellaneous expenditures. When you are able to see a month’s worth of spending in front of you, it becomes easier to determine which are necessary and which areas you can cut back on.

Step 2: Establish a budget.

Once you have an estimate of how much you are spending each month, set up a budget that fits your lifestyle and goals. You can break your budget into areas such as housing and utilities, food and personal care items, childcare, memberships, and miscellaneous. If you’ve tried budgeting in the past to no avail, start small. You don’t have to create a budget for all areas of your life at one time. Try setting up a budget for just one or two areas. Perhaps you want to spend less on subscriptions and memberships that you don’t use. A $30 gym membership might not sound like a lot of money to shell out each month, but that adds up to $360 a year! Be realistic about how much you are willing to spend on nonessentials, and consider looking for less expensive alternatives.

Step 3: Evaluate and pay down.

Credit is a necessary evil, but it doesn’t have to be nearly as big a headache as it is made out to be. Of course, some credit is good. Showcasing your ability to make timely payments to creditors is imperative for everything from buying a house to starting a business, but it’s easy to get in over your head. If you have multiple lines of credit, look carefully at the interest rates and amount borrowed on each. Start by paying down the cards with the highest amount of interest, which can quickly accrue and leave you even more in the hole.

Be realistic with your time frame for paying off debt. If you attempt to bite off more than you can chew, you can end up in worse shape than when you began. Do some research into your credit companies’ policies and see if they will work with you toward a lower interest rate or a reasonable payment plan. Once you’ve made progress in paying off any outstanding balances, make sure you remain in the black by setting up limits for yourself. Compare your credit limit, which is oftentimes far higher than what you can reasonably afford to pay off each month, with your monthly income and make sure you do not break the threshold you establish. If this sounds easier said than done, try to leave your credit cards at home unless you absolutely need them, or use them for smaller purchases that you can pay off more easily.

Take Advantage of Apps

There truly is an app for everything these days, including managing your finances. While apps cannot replace the expertise of a professional, they are a great way to plan, budget, and keep track of your savings on daily, weekly, and monthly bases.

Mint

If you’re tired of having to look through multiple accounts to keep track of your spending, the Mint app is perfect for you. The app logs everything: the total amount of money you have across all your accounts, your credit score, and debt. Its calendar function can show you when your bills are due and how much you owe, and lets you check off payments once they’re made. The best part? Mint is totally free.

Spendee

Visual learners, look no further than Spendee for your financial-planning needs. This app provides a visual breakdown of your spending, allowing you to more easily see the areas you might want to cut back on. It connects to your bank account to provide a list view of your payments, and it can even show the average of your expenses as well as the day of the week you tend to spend the most.

Stock and bond market activity was materially shaken last week as Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), the California bank subsidiary of SVB Financial Group (SIVB), fell into FDIC receivership. SVB is the first FDIC-insured institution to fail since 2020 and the largest by assets since Washington Mutual failed in 2008. The news has caused market participants to speculate if another shoe is to drop.

Many market participants are focusing in on SVB’s losses in its securities portfolio as a key cause for its demise, and participants are also tying the bank’s fall to the Federal Reserve’s (Fed) rising rate policies. We believe Fed policies were only partially to blame, as SVB’s niche customer base and lack of earning asset diversification (i.e. an unusually large portfolio of marketable securities relative to assets) also contributed to the bank’s failure.

Meanwhile, late Sunday, regulators closed Signature Bank (SBNY), an FDIC-insured New York state commercial bank with total assets of $110 billion. The institution fell victim to excess crypto-related deposits and was also experiencing material deposit outflows (-16.5% year-over-year).

At this time, we do not believe the SVB and SBNY bank failures are a deeper sign of things to come. However, we are paying close attention to ongoing developments in the banking sector and in other industries for hints of any widespread contagion. Indeed, more banks may come under distress (72 FDIC-insured banks have failed over the last 10 years), but we are not expecting SVB and SBNY to be the first steps on the way to a systemic crisis if the Federal Reserve, Treasury, and FDIC use their tools early to protect the system. LPL Research’s quantitative analysis of banks and savings and loan institutions in the Russell 3000 Index (see below) points to distinctive operating aspects of SVB that we believe contributed to its downfall. Unique exposures at SBNY (crypto) likely caused that institution to also suffer a lack of diversification in its depositor base.

Also on Sunday, regulators, including the U.S. Treasury Department, the Fed, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, indicated that all depositors of SVB and SBNY will be made whole. Meanwhile, we anticipate regulators will take emergency measures Monday and/or this week to help backstop the banking system and reinstall depositor confidence.

SVB Financial Group (SIVB) Background

SIVB is a bank holding company that serves emerging growth and middle-market growth companies in targeted niches, focusing on the technology and life-sciences industries. The company’s operations include a limited international presence, a U.S. wealth unit, a commercial bank, an investment bank, and a fund manager. Prior to the current distress, the bank (SVB) held $212 billion in assets and $175 billion in deposits.

SVB’s unique combination of bank depositors (individuals and institutions exposed to weakness in venture/start-up valuations) and degradation to its asset portfolio caused the institution to become troubled when faced with unusually large depositor withdrawals. The large amount of withdrawals, driven in part by SVB’s customer exposure to distress in the venture capital industry and its lack of stickier retail deposits, caused SIVB to sell marketable assets at losses to cover those withdrawals. This added further stress to its balance sheet as more fixed income securities were marked to market at much lower valuations. The news flow about SVB’s position intensified the withdrawal outflow, which ultimately resulted in the FDIC stepping in.

Signature Bank (SBNY) Background

Signature Bank is a full service commercial bank that serves privately-owned business clients and their owners and senior managers. The bank provides a line of personal banking products and services along with investment, brokerage, asset management, and insurance products.

The “House View”

At the time of this writing, we are hearing that Fed officials are contemplating several measures to attempt to ensure stability in the banking system. Any such developments will likely be viewed as a positive by the market. However, we are also anticipating that depositors at smaller banks may become uneasy and may seek to withdraw funds. Reuters has reported of such an occurrence at a First Republic Bank in California (ticker: FRC). The risk of this type of sentiment activity, as well as the late-Sunday news on Signature Bank, causes us to operate with tactical caution at this juncture, particularly when it comes to bank stocks.

Bank Industry Analysis Re: SVB Financial Group (SIVB)

To gather insight into the potential systemic risk posed by the SVB failure, LPL Research conducted quantitative analysis of the 241 publicly-traded banks and savings and loan institutions in the Russell 3000 Index. LPL analyzed each company’s deposits, deposit rate of growth, unrealized losses, total assets, marketable securities position, capital ratios, and marketable security positions relative to various balance sheet variables. Our findings were:

• SVB Financial Group (SIVB) was the 14th largest institution by assets ($212 billion) as of December 31, 2022.

• Of all the banks in our studied universe, SVB Financial Group had far more marketable securities relative to total assets, total deposits, and earning assets: 55.4%, 67.4%, and 60.4%. The average for the banks with over $25 billion in assets was 22.2%, 29.5%, and 25.3%. This means SIVB was running a balance sheet relatively more prone to changes in market prices than its counterparts and thus was more exposed to price pressure in the bond market.

• SIVB’s deposit growth over the last year (-8.5%) was materially worse than the universe of banks with over $25 billion in assets (+5.6%). The lack of asset diversification made it uniquely difficult for SIVB to manage against high withdrawal flows.

• The niche nature of SIVB’s clientele, coupled with the firm’s balance sheet mismanagement, were distinctive contributors to the bank’s downfall, in our view. While other banking institutions need to be scrutinized for their specific business exposure, we do believe broader asset diversification among many banks we have analyzed can alleviate the risk of another high-profile bank failure.

Citation(s)

LPL Research. (2023, March 13). Dissecting Recent Bank Failures. Retrieved from https://lplresearch.com/2023/03/13/dissecting-recent-bank-failures/#more-27036.

Important Disclosures

This material is for general information only and is not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. There is no assurance that the views or strategies discussed are suitable for all investors or will yield positive outcomes. Investing involves risks including possible loss of principal. Any economic forecasts set forth may not develop as predicted and are subject to change.

References to markets, asset classes, and sectors are generally regarding the corresponding market index. Indexes are unmanaged statistical composites and cannot be invested into directly. Index performance is not indicative of the performance of any investment and do not reflect fees, expenses, or sales charges. All performance referenced is historical and is no guarantee of future results.

Any company names noted herein are for educational purposes only and not an indication of trading intent or a solicitation of their products or services. LPL Financial doesn’t provide research on individual equities. All information is believed to be from reliable sources; however, LPL Financial makes no representation as to its completeness or accuracy.

All index and market data from Bloomberg.

This Research material was prepared by LPL Financial, LLC.

Securities and advisory services offered through LPL Financial (LPL), a registered investment advisor and broker-dealer (member FINRA/SIPC).

Insurance products are offered through LPL or its licensed affiliates. To the extent you are receiving investment advice from a separately registered independent investment advisor that is not an LPL affiliate, please note LPL makes no representation with respect to such entity.

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Credit is a crucial component of your financial health and well-being. Without proper credit, it might be difficult, if not impossible to obtain the things you need throughout your life, such as a place to live, or a vehicle to drive. Throughout your life, you will be in different credit situations and your credit will be important for different reasons. To know what you need to do to get your credit where it needs to be, it is important to understand what your credit situation is likely to be at your specific stage in life.

Millennials

For millennials, the current goal is establishing and building a credit history. Those on the younger end of this generation may be experiencing their first taste of credit which often comes in the form of credit cards or student loans. The downside for this generation is that they have little credit history. This means even if the credit history they have is good, the lack of time and number of accounts may still lead to a lower score. The goal for credit during this stage in life should be to build it up enough to be able to qualify for home and car loans when the time for purchase arises. To do this, you will need to establish credit as soon as possible, always make payments on time, keep the overall debt amount low, and keep balances to limits low. It is also advisable to diversify credit as well between long-term debt like a student loan and revolving debt with a credit card.

Gen Xers

While Gen Xers have their credit significantly more established by this point in their lives, they are likely to rely on a good credit score the most. At this stage in life, you should be fine-tuning your credit, pushing it from fair to good or excellent. This jump in credit means significant savings when it comes to major purchases, paying down debt, or refinancing a home to get the lowest rates. The credit strategy at this point should be lowering the ratio of debt to open credit to 30% or less, continuing to pay bills on time, and making sure to avoid any blemishes on your credit record. Not only will having a higher credit score provide you with the freedom to make the purchase you want, but will also provide you with the greatest savings on interest.

Baby Boomers

When you see those significantly high credit scores, most often they belong to Baby Boomers. It is a reward for those who have spent many years paying their bills on time, managing their debts, and diversifying their accounts. What’s interesting about credit with this generation, is that high debt does not necessarily lead to a lower credit score. Whether it is due to the fact that Boomers have so many other positive factors with their credit, or they have higher credit limits making the ratio lower, it seems that having a larger amount of debt at this age is not as penalized. But that doesn’t mean that you should stop trying to maintain that good standing. A good credit score may help you to obtain the things you desire for your retirement. Continue to make timely payments and while it is ok to add debt, make sure that you have the income to stay on top of it and keep the ratio of debt to limits low.

Important Disclosures:

The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual.

All information is believed to be from reliable sources; however, LPL Financial makes no representation as to its completeness or accuracy.

Sources

• https://www.marketwatch.com/story/almost-half-of-millennials-say-that-their-credit-scores-are-holding-them-back-2018-07-16

• https://www.credit.com/credit-reports/how-credit-impacts-your-day-to-day-life/

• https://www.businessinsider.com/how-your-credit-score-can-impact-your-life-2016-5

• https://www.experian.com/blogs/ask-experian/research/how-baby-boomers-have-top-credit-scores-and-tons-of-debt/#:~:text=When%20it%20comes%20to%20credit,points%20higher%20than%20Gen%20Xers.&text=%22If%20debt%20is%20being%20well,not%20tank%20your%20credit%20scores.%22

Content Provider: WriterAccess

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