WindsorBrief for May 2021
Renovation: Welcoming our clients back and introducing our newly renovated office
Investing: Earnings appear strong, is inflation going to play the spoiler
Planning: Updating both short-term and long-term goals
In this month’s Windsor Brief, we would like to introduce you to our newly renovated lobby and meeting rooms and invite you to visit as our office is now open.
In the investment’s discussion, we touch on April performance, the outlook for earnings, and ask if inflation going to play the spoiler?
Our financial planning discussion focuses on short-term and long-term goals and how to achieve these goals with well thought out financial planning.
If you’d like to talk to us about these issues, or about any of your financial planning or investment goals, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
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Renovation: Welcoming our clients back and Introducing our newly renovated office
Spring has arrived! The new season ushers in change as flowers bloom and the trees come to life. In addition, the economy is re-opening and life is slowly returning to normal. With this return, all of us at Windsor Wealth Management would like to introduce you to our newly remodeled lobby and meeting rooms. We were able to find a silver lining in the work from home environment and took advantage of our relatively empty office to complete a well needed renovation. We are excited to open our doors to all of you and to meet with you in person again soon. Until then, we wanted to share some pictures of our completed renovation.
As you arrive, our refreshed lobby welcomes you with new signage, comfortable seating and relaxing ambient music.
You will be greeted and assisted by our receptionist at the updated receptionist desk.
Although the new lobby chairs and ambient music are relaxing, we hope you do not get too comfortable as you will quickly be shown to one of our updated conference rooms. Our large conference room, which many of you know well, has been renamed the Founders' Room, and given a fresh update.
We also added a brand-new smaller conference room, named the Partners' Room, with power and internet connections built into the all-glass table.
Both conference rooms have new state of the art video conferencing capabilities as well. This will allow us to video conference with additional individuals that may not be able to attend the meeting in person but would like to be included in the meeting. And as before, we can easily share our presentations on to the TV’s in each conference room.
We look forward to seeing you soon and hope the renovated office space makes your visit both comfortable and relaxing. Of course, we always have the ability to continue to use video conferencing for anyone who cannot make it to the office or prefers the convenience of meeting virtually. Either way, we look forward to meeting with you.
Investing: Earnings appear strong, is inflation going to play the spoiler
April delivered another strong month for the stock market, despite some volatility the last couple weeks. One area of strength we are seeing is in company Q1 reported earnings. 9 out of the 11 sectors in the market saw strengthening earnings, driving the overall S&P 500 earnings growth rate expectation to 33.9% for 2021, up from 30.9% just a week ago. Revenues have also improved. However, earnings expectations for 2022 have slightly declined, though this could just be noise and timing. Growth of 33.9% for 2021 and 13.7% for 2022 are very strong growth numbers and indicative of a healthy economy.
S&P 500 Annual Consensus EPS Estimate
Source: Strategas
In addition, operating margins have shown a very strong recovery off the lows. We expect to see this expansion to begin to slow as we are now seeing slight inflation as costs are beginning to increase. This could be temporary and will be something we continue to monitor going forward.
Estimated Next 12-Month S&P 500 Operating Margin
Source: Strategas
S&P 500 Y/Y Percentage Change in Costs
Source: Strategas
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Planning: Updating both short-term and long-term goals
As Windsor unveils our wonderful office updates, we wanted to check in with you on your goals. Do you have any short-term goals that you need a plan for funding?
Do you have new goals to save for? Windsor will help you determine how much monthly saving would be necessary and what type of account should be utilized. Your timeline will guide us to recommendations on how the funds should be invested. The shorter the timeline the less risk the funds should be subject to.
Have you have already been saving for your goals and you are now ready to implement one of your goals? Windsor will help you evaluate your accounts and help determine where to take the funds from. It may be a combination of taxable accounts or tax deferred accounts depending upon where your savings are located. We may recommend a mix of withdrawals depending upon your income tax bracket.
Taxable account – Windsor will review your holdings to verify the best source of funds taking into consideration income tax effect including capital gains or losses.
Tax deferred accounts – IRA, Roth IRA, 401k, annuities, etc. Windsor will review your various accounts and determine if any penalties apply and what income tax applies on withdrawals.
No matter what stage you are in – dreaming about your goals, ready to implement your goals or anywhere in between – Windsor stands ready to help you make a plan to achieve your goals.