It's fair to say that investors are excited right now, which is understandable given the market’s performance over the last two years.

During this year alone, over 20% of all trading days have ended at an all-time high! 🤯

That’s an average of more than one per week, so there’s not much else to say besides, “Wow!”

In today's email:

• Book Giveaway Winners!
• Tax Planning Cheatsheet (2025 Updated)
• Creating the Conditions for Patience

Let's dive in!

12 Insightful (and Unbelievable!) Statistics About Investing Whether you’re a market enthusiast or just here for the entertaining stories, you’ll love this lighthearted yet insightful end-of-year episode. 🎙️ Listen on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube Music​

📚 Book Giveaway Winners!

As shared on the podcast last week, I purchased 10 copies of Kyla Scanlon's new book to give away to newsletter readers.

A member of my team will email each of the randomly drawn winners, requesting their mailing addresses by Monday, December 23rd.

🎉 Congratulations to Martha, Lisa, Howard, Terry, Robert, Anna, Maureen, Donnie, Mary, and Jerry!

I look forward to supporting more authors and giving away more books next year.

📝 Grab Your Tax Cheatsheet (2025 Updated)

In case you missed it, be sure to download the freshly updated Tax & Retirement Planning Cheatsheet.

This 2-page PDF guide (updated for 2025) summarizes every important retirement & tax planning number you'll likely need.

​Grab it here.

📈 Creating Conditions for Patience

As fun as it has been, the challenge with markets like we've had is that they tend to result in one of two scenarios for investors:

1. They either entirely ignore all risk because they don’t want to miss out on a surging market...or
2. They feel anxiety and stress about what’s ahead

George Goodman (writing under the pseudonym Adam Smith) illustrated this phenomenon in the book Supermoney:

This seems like a perfect illustration of the current market environment.

There are some investors who are taking incredibly concentrated risks in a few areas of the market...

...while other investors are running around asking, “What time is it? What time is it?”

I thought this quote offered an interesting jumping-off point for today’s email since I’ve had a few conversations recently with folks who understandably have nervous feelings about what lies ahead.

Many of them are wondering whether they should “take some chips off the table.”

Should investors consider taking chips off the table?

You won’t be surprised that my answer is, “It depends.”

But unlike many people think, it is not dependent on the market—it depends on your personal needs, plans, and goals.

While each client situation is unique, reviewing your strategy from a 30,000-foot level can help you mentally and financially prepare to make the best decisions possible, regardless of what lies ahead.

The core of your preparation is understanding what your total cash needs are for the coming few years.

This would include both the total annual income you need from your portfolio over those years and any additional lump-sum needs you may have.

Based on those needs and your risk tolerance, you may decide to “set aside” anywhere from 2-5 years’ worth of those cash needs so they are not subject to potential equity market volatility.

The investing objective for those funds is not to pursue growth but to minimize volatility.

It's important that those funds are available when you need them, regardless of what is happening in the equity markets.

The goal of addressing your financial needs in this way is that when (not if) a market decline arrives, you will know that you have X years to weather the storm before material changes to your plan are required.

If you agree with this perspective, my hope is that it will give you the confidence to stay the course through it all, knowing that you have time to ride out the volatility.

In other words, we are creating the conditions for patience for when patience will be most needed.

Thank you for reading. Thank you for supporting my work. And thank you for another rewarding year. 🙏

I hope you enjoy the holidays, and I look forward to helping you "stay wealthy" in 2025 and beyond!

Sincerely,

Taylor Schulte, CFP®