It’s More Than Money

How Do I Find the Right Financial Advisor?

| Justin Smith
Between the TV ads, recommendations from friends, and the "nice man at church" it is hard to figure out how to find the right financial advisor. Below are our suggested links to independent research on where to start your search, what you should be looking for, and which questions to ask. Not surprisingly, we think the
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Market Commentary Q3 – 2016

| Justin Smith
Only the 1st Three Paragraphs are about the Election …I Promise "What will this election do to my investments?” Almost everyone we talk to seems to be both completely wrapped up and at the same time utterly exhausted with this election, so we will keep it to the first three paragraphs. Our answer always seems
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Market Commentary Q2 – 2016

| Jonathan Smith
Lost in the Woods On June 24th, more than 30 million citizens of the United Kingdom turned out to vote on the issue off their sovereign state’s future relationship with the European Union. With a surprising 52% majority, the “Leaves” won and the “Brexit” wheels were set in motion. According to The Economist, in the
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Market Commentary Q1 – 2016

| Jonathan Smith
You’re Hired, Here’s Your Phonebook. Not the Actual DOL Rulebook…But Close Just sit here and mumble your first name, maybe they won’t know the difference.” It was the summer of 1976 and I had recently graduated from Guilford College and somehow landed a job as a stockbroker. This was an odd thing, since I knew
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Market Commentary Q4 – 2015

| Jonathan Smith
Never Before North Carolina joined the ranks of lottery states in 2005 by introducing the NC Education lottery. As a side note, only 29% of the revenue goes into actual education and somehow, NC still ranks 50th in the nation in teacher pay and 51st (that’s not a typo) in percentage increase in teacher pay
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Market Commentary Q3 – 2015

| Justin Smith
"It's just like riding a bike...on water." That's what I told myself this past July as a boat full of my buddies cheered me on. The five of us had gathered in North Carolina from as far away as Texas and Illinois for our Financial Planning Study Group retreat and I wasn't going to let
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Market Commentary Q2 – 2015

| Jonathan Smith
Grinding Like a Garden Tiller The human brain works nonstop trying to figure out what the eye sees. It’s been working overtime trying to figure this one out: over the last year, the Dow has gone up one percent and down one percent 53 times. Over this time, it traveled 42,823.56 points up and down,
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Market Commentary Q1 – 2015

| Justin Smith
When Millie and I got married, we had a wedding shower where people gave us marital wisdom to go along with their gift. I remember hearing cutesy advice like “don’t waste all the good kid names on your pets” and “soak up these first years, they are so much fun.” They were sweet and sincere
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Market Commentary Q4 – 2014

| Jonathan Smith
When Justin was in high school, he and I rebuilt a 1977 International Harvest Scout II. We bought it for $1400 from Wilkes Community College where the Auto Shop students had been experimenting on it like it was a rolling Frankenstein; we had our work cut out for us. After we repaired a D+ student’s
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Market Commentary Q3 – 2014

| Justin Smith
Our son, Everett, just turned 18 months old last week. And after having two tutu-wearing daughters (Grayson now 7 and Finley Cate now almost 5) it felt like a real “win” for me, as a dad, to have my son’s favorite word be “truck.” And that doesn’t really even do the word justice, because he
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