Andrew Hammond
AAF Wealth Management Q3 Market Insight
The intricacies of market performance are deeply intertwined with various external factors, including inflation, interest rates, political shifts, geopolitical affairs, and natural disasters. This includes, sadly, the current humanitarian crisis in the Middle East. It is heart-breaking to see these events unfold in a region whose people have known such profound suffering for far too […]
From the Desk of Andy Hammond – September 2023
On the Desk The last few months of the year are always a busy time. We’re helping our clients with year-end planning, tax strategies, and budgeting that comes into play with 2024 just around the corner. Last year, the name of the game was tax loss harvesting, and we still have room to be strategic […]
Federal Financial Aid Eliminates Sibling Discount in 2024-2025
A change to the federal financial aid formula arising from The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 is set to eliminate a break that previously helped parents with two or more children in college. Currently, the Education Department divides the expected family contribution by the number of students attending college per family to determine student aid […]
AAF Wealth Management Q2 2023 Market Update
This has been an eventful year for U.S. and global economies. As we close the first half of 2023, U.S. consumers have largely witnessed a slowdown on inflation, while the rest of the world continues to wrestle with it. Domestically, though, we are beginning to see the cumulative effects of the past few years’ economic […]
From the Desk of Andy Hammond – June 2023
I’ve been honored by the opportunity to set clients’ minds at ease on a couple of points this year. It has been a turbulent economic time out there, and we get a lot of questions about the impact on our lives. First and foremost: if you have questions, you’re not alone. Clients from all walks […]
AAF Wealth Management Q1 2023 Market Update
1st Quarter 2023: A Record-setting Start Reflecting on the start of 2023, it strikes us as interesting that we’ve just endured yet another volatile period that has seemingly become the norm for markets during the months of February and March. For the past five years, at least late winter through early spring, market turbulence has come […]
Investment Performance – 2022 Recap.
As we look back on 2022, there are things for which we can be grateful, but market performance is certainly not one of them. Investment Performance – 2022 Recap. Around the world, few markets provided positive performance in what turned out to be the worst year for US investors since the Great Financial Crisis of […]
Inflationary Pressures on the Decline
Over the past two weeks, economic data have pointed to what may be a change in the stifling inflationary pressures we’ve become accustomed to over the past 2 years. CONSUMER PRICE INDEX RELEASE LEADS TO OPTIMISM… Last Thursday’s release of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) readings from the Bureau of Labor and Statistics (BLS) noted […]
AAF Wealth Management’s Q3 2022 Market Perspective
A PROLOGUE TO THE STORY… As we sat down to pen this latest quarterly newsletter, we couldn’t help but think of the opening scene of the movie The Big Short (2015). “IT AIN’T WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW THAT GETS YOU INTO TROUBLE. IT’S WHAT YOU KNOW FOR SURE THAT JUST AIN’T SO.” – MARK TWAIN The […]