News & Insights

In June 2017, the Financial Times recognized West Financial Services as one of the 300 Top Registered Investment Advisers* in the U.S.

Given our philosophy to invest in individual bonds for the fixed income portion of portfolios, we receive tender offers for bonds held in client portfolios on a regular basis. With the decline in interest rates over the first six months of the year, we have seen an increase in these offers and calls from clients concerning any actions they should be taking in response to the offers. We wanted to take this opportunity to explain what can be a fairly complex transaction. A tender offer is when a company offers to repurchase some, or all, of a bond issuance before the stated maturity date. The

In April 2017, the US House of Representatives passed the American Health Care Act (AHCA), making good on seven years of campaign promises to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

Recently, a Reuters article quoted Warren Buffet that most investors, “should stick with low-cost index funds.” He reasons that index funds routinely outperform actively managed funds, and especially when adding in the high fees of Wall Street investment firms.1 If you are paying higher fees for active management and not outperforming the index over full market cycles, then he has a valid point. Read more

In 2014, I wrote an article on how to freeze your credit union reports as a way to protect not only your credit, but your privacy. Placing a security freeze at the three credit reporting companies—Equifax, TransUnion and Experian—prevents any person or organization, including lenders, from accessing your credit information.

The federal estate tax is a tax on property (cash, real estate, stock, or other assets) transferred from deceased persons to their heirs.

When it comes to simplifying your financial life, we are all about consolidation and aggregation. However, when it comes to required minimum distributions (RMDs), sometimes separate is better.

Social Security has evolved over time to cover more of the population and to represent different things to its beneficiaries. The Social Security Act of 1935 established the program’s basic structure, a function of two goals; social adequacy and individual equity.