Investments
Independence is the hallmark of our investment approach. Free to bring a virtually unlimited list of financial instruments to bear on our clients’ need to invest for the future, Halliday Financial provides access to every major investment category necessary for the achievement of our clients’ goals. Depending on our clients’ strategic investment needs, Halliday Financial provides our clients access to a wide array of investment products. For some investors, mutual funds, fixed and variable annuities meet their needs. For others, cash management, managed fixed income and managed equities portfolios, brokerage accounts, equities, ETF and bond portfolios are needed.
Custom Strategies
Your Halliday Financial Advisor or Wealth Advisor has access to a breadth of investment strategies and platforms. This means that he or she can tailor your investment mix to your family’s needs.
Halliday Financial is also uniquely positioned to provide customized structured products solutions for our clientele.
Investment Options
Stock and Bond Portfolios
The classic brokerage account containing a portfolio of stocks and bonds and other investments is still a powerful way to achieve financial goals. Halliday Financial uses its relationship with Pershing, LLC to bring the highest level of technology and stability to its clients. Pershing, LLC has been a leading global provider of financial business solutions for over 70 years and serves many of the world’s most respected financial organizations. Pershing has approximately $770.2 billion in assets held in custody. Its parent company, BNY Mellon, is the world’s leading provider of securities services and a top global asset management firm, with $22.3 trillion in assets under custody and administration and $1.1 trillion in assets under management.
More than just a receptacle for securities, a Halliday Financial account custodied at Pershing provides a means of cash management, personal finance and timely execution of orders. Our relationship with Pershing offers us top-end research and the ability to access bond inventories, managed account platforms and other financial tools that are otherwise unavailable to our clients.
Separately Managed Accounts
Halliday Financial operates a proprietary Separately Managed Account program in addition to the SMAs available through Pershing. The Northshore Funds Investment Management program is available to Halliday Financial clients with a minimum account value of $250,000 and permits clients to select from several portfolios with different proportions of equities and fixed income exposure.
Mutual Funds
For many investors, the purchase of mutual funds is an effective means of accessing a variety of investment classes in a manner that provides diversification and management without a significant minimum investment.
Variable Annuities
When used properly, variable annuities are a key element of securing a predictable lifetime income in retirement. Prior to retirement, they aid in the accumulation of tax-deferred assets. Variable annuities can be a powerful strategy for achieving financial goals.
Tax Planning
At Halliday Financial we believe it is unwise to create a solid financial plan and then ignore the possible losses and inefficiencies that can often accompany taxes.
There’s an old expression in financial services: it’s what you keep that matters. Understanding the tax ramifications of financial decisions ranging from selecting the right investments, to managing income taxation year to year, to estate planning for the most advantageous multi-generational tax impact can be the difference between achieving financial goals and not achieving them.
Halliday’s Tax Pledge
Intelligently navigating the tax landscape with our clients is so integral to what we do at Halliday Financial that we have allied ourselves with a CPA group that helps many of our clients:
- Prepare individual income tax returns
- Understand the tax implications of their investments
- Consider the tax effects of possible estate planning strategies
Impact of Taxation
Every investment you own may be taxed in a different way. The taxation of dividends and interest is different than the taxation on capital gains or withdrawals from an IRA. Knowing how these differences may impact your net returns and planning to create the ideal balance between pre- and post-tax returns is crucial.
At Halliday Financial, we have found that keeping track of the impact of taxes in best accomplished when the tax consultant and the HFG Financial Advisor or Wealth Advisor work closely together.
For many families, the most important area of tax planning relates to their estate plans. In an environment of changeing regulations, ensuring that your estate plan is current and is designed to take advantage of tax savings opportunities is essential.
Avoiding or reducing estate taxes, on both the federal and state levels, is one fundamental goal of estate planning. On another level, though, shifting the burden of paying income taxes, even if your estate will not be subjected to estate taxes, can increase the assets left to heirs. Through a deep understanding of the use of IRAs, charitable gifting and other investments such as life insurance, your Halliday Financial Advisor, in combination with the efforts of our network of accountants and attorneys (or your tax and legal professionals) can help you build an effective strategy that makes sense.
Ask your Halliday Financial Advisor or Wealth Manager about Halliday Financial’s Tax Services.
Estate Planning
Only one-third of all Americans have a last will and testament. For the two-thirds who do not, the intestate laws of the states they live in will determine who will receive their assets when they die. Many of our clients are surprised by what those intestate laws say.
Even our clients who have wills may have outdated wills or wills that do something very different than they thought.
What’s more, assets like retirement plans and life insurance pass to heirs based on beneficiary designations and not based on your will. Some people are not sure what their beneficiary designations say and, most of the time, the results that would be achieved by current beneficiary designations are not consistent with a client’s wishes.
When beneficiary designations on retirement plans are structured incorrectly, valuable tax deferral may be lost. Few advisors understand the intricate regulations that apply to the inheritance of retirement assets and the most efficient ways for recipients to make use of the tax deferral rules.
Understanding “Trusts”
Under many circumstances, trusts are an effective way to accomplish multiple estate planning objectives with less cost and trouble than many clients believe.
A trust is really quite simple. Instead of one person holding all ownership rights in an asset, a trust splits the rights of legal ownership and beneficial enjoyment. Under the provisions of a trust, a trustee is technically the owner of the trust’s assets. The trustee must abide by both statutory trustee laws and the written trust document to manage trust assets for the benefit of the beneficiaries. The beneficiaries hold the right to enjoy the benefits of the trust assets subject to the management of the trustee.
The simplest trusts give investment decision-making ability to the trustee and instruct the trustee to pay income and certain amounts of principal to the beneficiaries. In this way, younger beneficiaries and beneficiaries that know little about managing money benefit from the involvement of another person or company better able to make wise decisions regarding investment and tax issues.
Trusts can be used to obtain tax advantages. By shifting the ownership of assets to a trustee rather than an intended beneficiary, trusts can spare your family taxes that would otherwise be paid.
Benefits of Estate Planning
In some cases, a trust is the best way to achieve an estate-planning objective. For example, if a parent leaves money outright to a child, all control over the asset is lost at that point. There is no guarantee that the child will leave that same money to her children. If, however, the parent creates a trust for the benefit of the child and the trust dictates what will happen when the child attains a certain age or dies, the client can feel certain that the maximum benefit of his assets will be enjoyed by more than one generation or more than one member of the family.
We make it a point to see that estate planning is discussed with all of our clients. If you have your own attorney, we will be happy to discuss your estate plan with him or her. If you do not have an attorney, or your attorney is not comfortable with estate planning concepts, we can arrange for you to meet with one of our affiliated attorneys. Our affiliated attorneys may recommend use of powerful strategies, including specialized trust instruments, to create an estate plan with maximum tax relief, maximum flexibility and achievement of all of your estate-planning goals.
College Savings
After retirement, and possibly long-term care, educating your child, children, or in some cases, grandchildren, is likely the largest financial hurdle your family will need to clear.
The cost of higher education is rising each year at a pace in excess of inflation. Top private schools and public universities alike are continuing to raise the cost of everything from tuition to room and board.
Fortunately, Halliday Financial can help in two ways.
529 Savings Plan
If you have young children or grandchildren, and therefore a sufficient amount of time to plan, Halliday Financial can help you determine the possible cost of college, decide on the portion of that expense you want to accumulate and develop an investment plan for meeting your goals.
Under a program statutorily created by the federal government and administered by individual states, you can establish investment accounts with special tax advantages in order to accumulate assets to help put your kids through college (and even graduate school). Called 529 College Savings Accounts, these special investment vehicles provide valuable tax advantages that make accumulating sufficient college funds easier.
Let a Halliday Financial Advisor help you understand and take advantage of these powerful savings opportunities.
Maximum Financial Aid
If you have children nearing college age, Halliday Financial specialists can assist you in the process of securing the most financial aid available to you.
Many people misunderstand the financial aid system, believing that it is available only to the lowest income families. In reality, carefully positioning your assets and properly completing the applications for financial aid can make a significant difference in the amount of money your family can receive.
So, if you’re worried about how your family is going to afford the price tag of the college or university your child is thinking of attending, let us help you determine if you can get financial aid to help you.
Contact Us
At Halliday Financial, we take pride in fostering your financial safety. We assist our clients through every phase of the financial lifecycle, from starting a career and family to retirement. We take satisfaction in seeing our clients realize their dreams. Contact us today…