There are only a few days left in the year, which means the clock is winding down for some key 2019 investment planning. Here are our four tips and reminders for investors as we enter the New YearContribute to Retirement Plans<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Contribute to Retirement Plans:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Whether you have an employer-sponsored retirement plan like a 401(k) or 403(b), or are a small business owner with your own retirement plan, you may still have one paycheck left to make an additional contribution to your plan if you haven\u2019t maxed it out already. If you don\u2019t have a job where a retirement plan is offered, then consider making a contribution to an IRA or a Roth IRA (your income and tax filing status may affect how much, or if, you can contribute). Truth be told, you actually have until April 15, 2020 to make IRA contributions, but why not end the year on a savings note if you can! <\/p>\n\n\n\n ________________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n\n\n\n Get our free 2019 Investors\u2019 Year in Review<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n As 2019 draws to a close, many investors make it a habit to\nreflect on the past 12 months, and how the events and trends will shape the\nupcoming year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At Zacks Investment Management, we pay close attention to\neconomic, financial, and geopolitical events as they relate to investments. The\nyear\u2019s trends and themes can often be a predictor of future markets\u2014and, in our\nopinion, reviewing the past can be helpful as you position yourself and your\nportfolio for the future. That\u2019s why we\u2019d like to offer you our free year-end\nguide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you have $500,000 or more to invest, get your free copy\ntoday. We believe it offers detailed analysis of the year\u2019s most consequential\nevents, as well as our opinion on what they mean for investors going forward\ninto 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Comprehensive 2019 Year in Review For Investors<\/a>1<\/a><\/sup><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n ________________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n\n\n\n Work with Your Advisor and Tax Advisor on Potential Tax Loss Harvesting<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n At Zacks Investment Management, we are not tax advisors and our core focus is on managing wealth. But one of our advisors can work with you and your tax advisor to determine if you have gains in your taxable portfolios that you may be able to strategically offset with losses. You are also allowed to offset up to $3,000 in income from capital losses in your portfolio, if you don\u2019t have any gains to offset from 2019. You\u2019ll need to place trades before market close on December 31, and don\u2019t forget about the wash-sale rule, which states that you cannot repurchase the securities you sold until after a 30-day waiting period.2<\/sup> <\/p>\n\n\n\n Don\u2019t Forget Your Required Minimum Distribution (RMD)!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n If you\u2019re over the age of 70.5 and have qualified retirement accounts, then you almost certainly have to take an RMD each year. If you don\u2019t make any withdrawals from your IRA in a year that you\u2019re 70 \u00bd or older \u2013 or if you withdraw less than the required amount \u2013 you may have to pay a 50% excise tax<\/em> on the amount not distributed as required. In addition to paying a hefty tax, you likely have to do more paperwork the next year at tax time by filing Form 5329, \u201cAdditional Taxes on Qualified Plans (Including IRAs) and Other Tax-Favored Accounts.\u201d3<\/sup> So don\u2019t forget to take it! <\/p>\n\n\n\n Remember Lessons from 2019 and Stay Focused on the Long-Term<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n We would qualify 2019 as a year where many investors entered the year skeptically, especially considering the dramatic sell-off experienced at the end of 2018. The trade war was growing, the stock market was wildly volatile, and recession chatter was growing by the day. At the outset of the year, there seemed to be more reasons to be negative than positive. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But as the year\ndraws to a close, it will go down as one of the best performance years for U.S.\nequities for the entire decade. It serves as a reminder that stocks are often\nable to climb the \u201cwall of worry,\u201d and that investing based on emotions or news\nheadlines can often result in being on the sidelines when the market surprises\nus the most. As we enter 2020, no one can say for sure what the new year will\nbring in terms of stock market returns or economic growth. But what we do know\nis that over time, the stock market and the economy have overcome adversity \u2013\nwith speed bumps along the way, certainly \u2013 to reach new all-time highs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Looking back on 2019, the year\u2019s trends and themes can often\nbe a predictor of future markets\u2014and, in our opinion, reviewing the past can be\nhelpful as you position yourself and your portfolio for the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To help you do this, we are offering readers our\nComprehensive 2019 Year in Review.4<\/sup> We believe this guide offers\ndetailed analysis of the year\u2019s most consequential events, as well as our\nopinion on what they mean for investors going forward into 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you have $500,000 or more to invest, click on the link\nbelow to get our free year-end review today!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As 2019 comes to a close, what can you do to get your retirement planning ready for the New Year?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7426,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[71,73],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-private-client-group","category-steady-investors-week"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8414"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8414\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10660,"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8414\/revisions\/10660"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}