August 2014 Monthly Recap

Back to School – Our little Harrison started his first day of pre-school last week. You can see how proud he was to be like his big brother Max who’s now in 1st grade!

Have a great start to Fall.

Best Wishes,
Mark Fissel

Market Recap

Investors regained an appetite for risk in August, seeming to focus on generally encouraging Q2 economic data and corporate earnings reports rather than tensions overseas. The optimism took the S&P over 2,000 for the first time… (READ MORE)

Economic Perspective

• GDP estimates revised upward for Q2 growth at 4.2%
• Unemployment remains at lowest in 6 years; 6.2%
• Fed on pace to halt bond purchases in Oct.
• Housing recovery appears to be leveling off.  New home sales fell 2.4% in July.
• CPI increased by .1% in July. Smallest increase since Feb.
• Russian-Ukraine tensions escalate as Russia banned imports from U.S. and EU
• EU recovery stalled in Q2; unemployment remained at 11.5%  (READ MORE)

10 Tax To Dos This Year

Here are 10 things to consider as you weigh potential tax moves between now and the end of the year. (READ MORE)

DOL Guidance on Finding Missing Participants in Terminated Defined Contribution Plans

The Department of Labor (DOL) issued a new Field Assistance Bulletin (FAB) 2014-01 on August 14, 2014 outlining the steps that a plan fiduciary should take to locate missing participants or beneficiaries. This new FAB replaces DOL’s FAB 2004-02.

The major change in this new FAB is that DOL has removed the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Social Security Administration (SSA) letter-forwarding service methods as both IRS and SSA have discontinued those programs… (READ MORE)