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When forecasting any investment assumptions, it is important to take a look at the factors that shaped the past decade and those that will influence markets moving forward. From that vantage point, this year’s Capital Market Assumptions report provides strategic asset allocation models and shifts based on shorter-term market opportunities.

Coming into financial independence and taking on more responsibilities for your own income and spending is both a liberating and intimidating experience. To help navigate some of the most important and common financial and investment decisions, a collection of articles is provided for guidance. The goal is to help break down complicated concepts into laymen’s terms and provide illustrations and tools for thinking through cash flow and investment decisions.

Traditional benchmarks don’t work for taxable investors seeking to put their after-tax performance in perspective. The solution are customized benchmarks, which means knowing how to calculate your own personal index. It’s not a simple task, but it’s essential for any manager who wants to look credible in the tax-management space, and it’s now more feasible with skillful deployment of technology.

When an unforeseeable or disruptive event occurs—such as the COVID-19 pandemic—the transaction parties must look back at their real estate agreements and reassess their standing, rights, remedies, recourse, and relationships. To ensure good business judgment, the review on the provisions of your real estate contracts should include addressing the three common questions asked.

One question that is often asked when working with family offices is “What are families like mine doing”? The interest in the answers is even greater during periods of crisis, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Some of the world’s best investors and wealth stewards share their thoughts and insights into the unique challenges facing family offices, including investment management and opportunities, tax and estate planning, responsible investing and philanthropy, and governance and operations.

As the COVID-19 crisis has unfolded, our global health, economic, and market systems have been severely tested in a very short span of time. Even as we find ourselves in the midst of the implications, many thoughts are already geared toward what happens next … after the worst of this season’s coronavirus spread is under control. This report makes observations on the current situation and takes a look at what the possibilities of a “new normal” might look like, including summaries of key events and market volatility update.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had swift and severe effects on the U.S. by devastating the stock market and halting the broader economy. However, given the indicators of instability that had previously existed, an optimist may argue that the virus simply expedited a previously foreseen economic downturn and a recession-induced bear market. Undoubtedly this is an event-driven downturn that has a few wildcards in uncharted territory. The resiliency of the U.S. economy and efficiencies of the global economy will be challenged.

Although the population and life expectancies of U.S. retirees are increasing, portfolio yields remain at historically low levels. As defined benefit income becomes less commonly available, the need for informed retirement portfolio spending strategies is more critical. Because every investor's financial situation is unique, there is no one-size-fits-all solution.

In the same way that spot prices are useful to farmers for planning, they can be just as useful for investors. Many index providers recognize this and publish asset-class-wide measurements of aggregate spot prices called spot indexes. However, things can get complicated if you don’t understand their subtleties.

In a time of volatility and unstable markets, investing in sustainable infrastructure can help stabilize an investment portfolio. Further, sustainable infrastructure is likely to be more shielded than many other sectors from emerging concerns stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic, such as consumer credit risk and business interruptions affecting non-essential industries. If properly structured, another stable source of investing can be found in Opportunity Zone investing.