For the eleventh consecutive year, Segment has been included on HBJ’s list of the Largest Houston-Area Wealth Management Firms. Segment ranks in the top “Private and Family Wealth Management Firms” category. We are proud to serve our clients and are grateful for their continued trust in us. Subscribers can follow this link to see the…
We get puzzled looks from new clients when we explain our position on taxable fixed income (bonds) in IRAs. Traditional planning advice recommends placing your highest growth assets in an IRA to maximize the tax deferral. We usually recommend the complete opposite approach, which becomes more and more preferable the higher the income of the…
We occasionally see portfolios come in for review containing structured notes. There are a wide variety of them, so I will speak generally. Not everything I will say applies to all, but likely most. A structured note is a bond from a brokerage firm or sponsor which represents an underlying derivative. Most often, this derivative…
From Financial Advisor to Published Author: Gil Baumgarten’s Multi-Faceted Success Our very own Gil Baumgarten was featured on CIO View’s May 2023 cover as an “Influential Finance Executive to Watch in 2023.” Gil shares the journey of his career, how to navigate the tax code, and his future plans for Segment Wealth Management. “In today’s…
You may have heard on Friday or over the weekend that a very large bank in California went belly up. Silicon Valley Bank was a very popular bank with emerging companies and venture capitalists. Details are still emerging about how the bank was mismanaged, but liquidity dried up when the bank said they needed to…
People believe that email communications are secure and private. Unfortunately, nefarious operators exploit this misconception, crafting elaborate schemes to separate you from your money. We all need to reset our beliefs about email and remain vigilant in communications. I’ll share a few close calls we’ve encountered to drive home this point. Once upon a time,…
This week marks two anniversaries of significance for me. Thirty years ago this week, the first exchange-traded fund (ETF) had its initial public offering (IPO). I bought shares in my own account on the IPO of the Standard and Poors Depository Receipt (SPDR), which tracks the S&P500. I knew it was a game changer. This…
Gil penned a piece on Advisory Practice Evolution in Financial Advisor Magazine! “Many advisors get stuck in the path of least resistance methods and never evolve to scale.” “Over my nearly four decades as an advisor, I’ve seen quite an evolution in my practice. There was a day when I would take on new clients…
Segment’s business model is focused on compressing client costs and taxes and letting the market do its work. We operate this way because taxes and costs are controllable to a remarkable extent, and the benefits of doing so are repeatable. Stock pickers and trading-centric methodologies forfeit these benefits in search of market-beating returns. Our methodology’s…
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