At Allen Trust Company, our role is to guide you through the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead, ensuring your wealth aligns with your personal goals and legacy plans. The outlook for 2025 reflects a world in transition, with economic shifts, evolving family needs, and a growing emphasis on sustainability and security. Let me share how these trends could shape our approach to protecting and growing your wealth while preserving what matters most to you.

You’re not alone, we can’t believe it’s November and the Holiday season is officially upon us!  To assist you in utilizing the remainder of 2024 we’re providing a ‘nice’ list to review your financial situation and prepare for a strong start to the new year.

Every quarter is full of news about the labor markets, inflation, consumer and business spending, corporate earnings accompanied by unanticipated events. Each of these could potentially move the markets. Yet in some quarters, the news and events have negligible effect, and the quarters feel boring. The third quarter of 2024 was not a boring quarter, and more things happened in those three months than what has occurred in some years.

In today's interconnected world, cybersecurity has become necessary to combat potential cyber-attacks on individuals, large corporations, and everyone in between. With more personal, financial, and professional data being stored online – from banking and shopping to managing confidential information – the risk of cyber threats continues to grow.

As we move towards the last quarter of 2024, the efficiency and flexibility of cash gifts may also appeal to you as you contemplate year-end giving. Here are some thoughts on the current available options. In 2024, individuals can give up to $18,000 per individual gift recipient without creating any gift tax liability. If you’re married, that means each spouse can give up to $18,000 per recipient.

Allen Trust Company, a trust-only state-chartered bank, announces a significant and exciting change from an individually owned firm to an employee-owned structure.

Like the changing of the years and seasons, the changing of quarters also brings a sense of optimism, and since the first quarter did not deliver all I was expecting, I could not wait to see what the second quarter would deliver.

The biggest news this week is Wednesday’s announcement from the Federal Reserve about the direction of interest rates, will they cut, raise, or hold. Last week’s inflation data strongly suggests the Fed will hold rates unchanged, but the weakness in the other data points is fuel to the fire that the Fed needs a cut to keep the economy on a smooth path.

The second week of February means the end of baseball’s Hot Stove League, or the offseason, when trades and free agents get new- and sometimes sizeable- contracts and marks the start of Spring Training. The new contracts and trades are often based on historical numbers of the players and projections that those players will live up to or improve on the historical numbers.

The goal in every sports league is to be among the best teams and make it into the playoffs and ultimately win the leagues championship. Since 2019, the Los Angeles Dodgers own the most overall wins in baseball and were the favorite or one of the two favorites to win the World Series each year.

The past two weeks were full of reports on the current state and outlook for the U.S. and global economies. Perhaps most importantly, the updated inflation data gave a more optimistic outlook for future Fed moves. Also, the key U.S. service sector activity index unexpectedly improved in November.