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PHILADELPHIA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Independence Realty Trust, Inc. (IRT) (NYSE: IRT), a multifamily apartment REIT, today announced its fourth quarter and full year 2021 financial results.

Fourth Quarter Highlights

Full Year Highlights

2022 Guidance Highlights

Included later in this press release are definitions of NOI, CFFO, Adjusted EBITDA and other Non-GAAP financial measures and reconciliations of such measures to their most comparable financial measures as calculated and presented in accordance with GAAP.

Management Commentary

2021 was an exceptional year for IRT underscored by outsized organic growth across the portfolio, as well as the completion of the STAR merger that cements our position as a leading multifamily REIT focused on the high growth U.S. Sunbelt region, said Scott Schaeffer, Chairman and CEO of IRT. We delivered fourth quarter and full year same store NOI growth of 15.1% and 11.4%, respectively, supported by improvements in average occupancy rates and rental income. In addition, we continued to advance our high return value add program and drive accretive growth through asset acquisitions and dispositions, as well as joint venture relationships in new multifamily development.

Looking ahead, we are excited for our next phase of growth, having doubled our property and unit count through our merger with STAR. Our integration efforts remain on-track, with our property and revenue management systems now fully implemented across all properties. In addition, we expect to achieve at least $28 million in annual synergies and effectively improve our leverage position. These advancements, along with our plans to continue to drive strong operating results, well position IRT to realize attractive growth in the multifamily sector for years to come.

Same Store Property Operating Results

Fourth Quarter 2021 Comparedto Fourth Quarter 2020(1)

Full Year 2021 Compared toFull Year 2020(1)

Rental and other property revenue

10.2% increase

8.4% increase

Property operating expenses

1.8% increase

3.8% increase

Net operating income (NOI)

15.1% increase

11.4% increase

Portfolio average occupancy

90 bps increase to 95.7%

230 bps increase to 95.7%

Portfolio average rental rate

9.7% increase to $1,266

5.9% increase to $1,209

NOI Margin

280 bps increase to 65.6%

170 bps increase to 62.7%

(1)

Same store portfolio for the three and twelve months ended December 31, 2021 includes 47 properties, which represent 12,838 units.

Same Store Property Operating Results, Excluding Value Add

The same store portfolio results below exclude 18 communities that are both part of the same store portfolio and were actively undergoing Value Add renovations during the three and twelve months ended December 31, 2021.

Fourth Quarter 2021 Comparedto Fourth Quarter 2020(1)

Full Year 2021 Compared toFull Year 2020(1)

Rental and other property revenue

8.5% increase

6.1% increase

Property operating expenses

5.3% increase

4.0% increase

Net operating income (NOI)

10.4% increase

7.4% increase

Portfolio average occupancy

80 bps increase to 96.6%

180 bps increase to 96.6%

Portfolio average rental rate

8.4% increase to $1,254

4.5% increase to $1,203

NOI Margin

100 bps increase to 64.6%

80 bps increase to 62.5%

(1)

Same store portfolio, excluding value add, for the three and twelve months ended December 31, 2021 includes 29 properties, which represent 7,034 units.

IRT and STAR Merger

On December 16, 2021, we completed our merger with STAR. Through the STAR Merger, we acquired 68 apartment communities that contain 21,394 units and two apartment communities that are under development and approved for 621 units in the aggregate. We acquired assets totaling $4.8 billion, assumed liabilities totaling $1.9 billion, and issued an aggregate of 99,720,948 shares of common stock and 6,429,481 IROP units in our merger with STAR. Leading up to and after the closing of the STAR Merger, we also successfully delevered the combined balance sheet through a combination of our July forward equity raise of $271 million on 16.1 million shares, the disposition of three STAR properties in November 2021 for a total sales price of $107 million, and the disposition of six IRT properties between December 2021 and February 2022 for a total sales price of $297 million.

Same Store Comparisons and STAR

As discussed above, we completed our merger with STAR, which more than doubled our property and unit counts. We will continue to follow our previous definition of same store and will formally add STAR to the same store pool on January 1, 2023 in accordance with our current same store definition. However, in 2022 we will begin presenting a Combined Same Store portfolio to help investors understand the larger same store portfolio. Weve included two new appendices this quarter. Appendix A shows the impact of consolidating STARs business for 2021. To aid in future modeling, we have added Appendix B, which provides the 2021 quarterly property operating results for the 2022 Combined Same Store portfolio. The following Operating Metrics and 2022 Guidance are presented considering these new same store portfolios. See the Definitions section of this release for full definitions of these new same store portfolios.

Operating Metrics

The table below summarizes operating metrics for the noted same store portfolios for the applicable periods.

4Q 2021

1Q 2022(3)

IRT Same Store Portfolio (47 properties / 12,838 units) (1)

Average Occupancy

95.7%

95.4%

Lease Over Lease Effective Rental Rate Growth (2):

New Leases

22.3%

20.3%

Renewal Leases

8.0%

11.3%

Blended

15.2%

14.3%

Resident retention rate

42.6%

48.4%

STAR Same Store Portfolio (62 properties / 19,860 units) (1)

Average Occupancy

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Independence Realty Trust Announces Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2021 Financial Results - Business Wire

A proto-state, a socio-political movement, the beast all names given to a single group that, at its height, seemed to embody the wests worst nightmare.

Islamic State appeared to be a motivated, well-led insurgency group dedicated to building its own "caliphate in conquered areas across the Middle East. Now, the recent violent death of its leader, Abu Ibrahim al-Qurayshi, in northern Syria, has left analysts wondering whether the group has largely been neutralised. But thats doubtful, as IS has been able to change over the years to suit its circumstances.

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, aka ISIS, emerged as an al-Qaida splinter group in 1999 and achieved the peak of its international notoriety in 2014, following the conquest of the city of Mosul in northern Iraq.

Although its ideology is not especially innovative grounded, as it is, in a mixture of the offshoot Islamic creeds of Salafism, Qutbism, Wahabism and Takfirism IS embodies a significant evolution in jihadi terror organisations. Its different to al-Qaida and more ambitious in several key ways. Osama bin Laden and his disciples never called for the establishment of a global caliphate. They were more focused on taking the fight against the western infidels.

IS dared to go much further, creating a pseudo-state with more than 30,000 fighters and a sophisticated authoritarian system of government. As militants joined the group from all over the world, IS expanded across northern Iraq and Syria. By doing this, it was able to seize control of considerable natural resources principally oil to give it financial independence.

Former IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadis bold declaration of a caliphate on June 29 2014 was a spur for many to join the cause. But, as American journalist Graeme Wood noted, IS had a broad appeal to everyone from Sunni Arab pragmatists to foreign soldiers of fortune. This suggests the group wanted to appeal to a diverse membership, not all of whom were motivated by religion. It has been reported that copies of Islam for Dummies and The Koran for Dummies were circulated among the groups foreign fighters to give them an idea of the ideology they were fighting for.

IS rhetoric on social justice and a sense of revenge against a corrupt and unjust western establishment were very appealing for many who decided to join the group. Through its sophisticated propaganda distributed on social media, the IS communication department continues to disseminate ad hoc messages and videos with Hollywood-style effects. These dont only focus on violence, but also touch on the welfare and care IS insists it will provide to all members. The IS-affiliated Al Hayat Media Center generates media content aimed specifically at non-Arabic speakers particularly younger audiences, who represent a core recruitment pool for the organisation.

Al-Qurayshis death he killed himself and his wife and children during a raid by US troops in northern Syria is unlikely to shift the loyalty of many members or lessen the appeal of the group. And he and his family will, for many, be seen as martyrs in an ongoing war.

Since 2017, IS has lost 98% of its territories. It has accordingly shifted its strategy from becoming a quasi state to a decentralised ideology focused on encouraging solo attacks around the world. The loss of territory and the capture and killing of its leaders is unlikely to damage the groups appeal or its emotional significance for those who have joined the cause and those who would still like to.

IS has been home for many second-generation Muslims and a safe place for disenfranchised individuals. IS has been able to able to fill the void in the lives of thousands of young people who dream of joining a greater cause and fighting against any form of oppression they have encountered in their apparently comfortable western lives.

So IS has evolved into a post-territorial group which represents a sort of wide resistance against the establishment depicted as former colonial western powers. Touching on different social, economic, political and religious grievances, IS has managed to gather individuals from various backgrounds and unite them under the shahada flag (which proclaims a faith in Islam). It might have lost most of its territory and suffered the deaths of successive leaders but the ideological ground and the grievances the group rests upon remain undiminished. It is likely that the terror group will continue attracting supporters and followers for the foreseeable future.

Efforts to prevent this should focus on what the founder of the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR), Peter Neumann, refers to as everything that happens before the bomb goes off. This is the radicalisation process: when individuals are attracted to a certain set of ideas but have not yet engaged and acted upon them. More research should focus on the variety of non-violent but vocal extremist groups whose ideological assumptions appear similar to some terror groups but who do not espouse violence as a viable methodology.

Al-Qurayshis death may be forgotten over time, but the group he led still represents a considerable danger. While the actual territorial presence of Islamic State has been annihilated, for those people (and their children) who called the caliphate home, the proto-state exists in the massive diaspora who dreamed of what the caliphate could fulfil. The danger for the west is that the strength of IS doesnt depend on its leader but on the emotional significance it has for its supporters. Until this is addressed there will always be a beast threatening the west.

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Islamic State: death of leader is big step towards becoming a different kind of terrorist organisation - The Conversation UK

BRIAN CONTRERASLos Angles Times (TNS)

When she was growing up in New Jersey, Alexia Del Valle had a mural of the Hollywood sign on her bedroom wall. She dreamed of making it out to Los Angeles.

She doesn't need paintings anymore. Now that she's part of the Familia Fuego, an all-Latino TikTok collective living high in the Hollywood Hills, she can have the real deal whenever she wants.

"I got here and looked outside our window, and there's the Hollywood sign," said Del Valle, 23. "I literally was crying."

A world-class view is one of the many perks that come with being part of the Familia. Del Valle moved into the group's $2.2-million shared home last September. Ever since, she has been brainstorming ideas, collaborating on videos and advancing her budding entertainment career alongside four other young social media stars: Leo Gonzalez, Monica Villa, Jesus Zapien and Isabella Ferregur. With the backing of DirecTV and the influencer marketing firm Whalar, the quintet have gone from working service industry day jobs to doing shots with Neil Patrick Harris, watching the Chargers alongside Roddy Ricch and living down the street from Quentin Tarantino.

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As both Hollywood and the influencer economy wrestle with questions of diversity and representation, Familia Fuego is the rare project that's unabashedly, wholeheartedly Latino. How many other influencers could get 50,000-plus likes on a video about pozole? That they're based out of a city that's nearly half Latino, but in an extravagantly wealthy neighborhood where that proportion is closer to 10%, further colors the uneasy task the TikTokers have of representing their heritage while also making inroads into historically white career fields.

"It's definitely challenging" being a high-profile Latina influencer, said Del Valle, who's of Puerto Rican descent and has 1.5 million followers on her personal TikTok account (the shared Familia Fuego page has another 127,000). "But it's also special, because it's giving us an opportunity to represent where we come from. It seems more rewarding, in a way. We're putting ourselves out there, and our people out there also."

People often assume that influencers are all rich or have limitless resources, Del Valle added, but she doesn't think she'd have been able to move to California without the help of Familia Fuego's corporate sponsors. "People don't see that we really came from humble backgrounds."

Social media can sometimes be dominated by conspicuous displays of wealth: designer outfits, globe-trotting vacation selfies, Michelin-rated food porn. The Familia Fuego doesn't entirely reject those signifiers in some posts, they practice their red carpet struts or cross paths with celebrities but they're also more interested in "mocking the daily struggles" of service industry work, as Zapien puts it, than most influencers. A recurring sketch series in which they impersonate retail employees finds them wrangling nightmare customers and fighting over who gets the worst shifts. Other bits center around flaky co-workers, callous HR reps and overfamiliar recruiters.

It's a perspective rooted in personal experience. Before the Fuego house, Zapien, 24 and Mexican American, worked at Walmart, Disneyland and then a bank. "I was super shy," he said. "And then I was like, 'I'm too broke to be shy.'"

Now he does TikTok full-time, while his sponsors support him with things such as studio space, housekeeping service and staple food deliveries: "It's nice to get paid to do what you love."

Del Valle worked at Disney World before graduating from college in 2020. Of all the TikTok collectives in L.A., Familia Fuego may have the highest proportion of members who can instinctively show you how to do a "Disney point," the special hand gesture park employees have to learn.

The rest of the crew followed their own winding paths toward influencerdom. Villa, a 24-year-old Chicana, used to work at a catering company. Ferregur, 21 and from a mixed Mexican Cuban family, did boat rentals. Gonzalez, 27 and also Mexican American, hoped to become a television reporter. He worked at broadcast stations across California and Nevada before a TikTok of him parodying a newscaster blew up and he decided that social media might be a "less traumatic" career.

"I've never been able to call myself an influencer," Gonzalez said when The Times spoke with him and the rest of the Familia. All five sat around the house's dining room table; Gonzalez had recently passed two million followers on his personal account, and they were celebrating over croquettes and guava pastelitos. "But after a content house, maybe you're an influencer."

"I still cringe," Ferregur said. "I don't call myself an influencer."

"In Ubers, I always tell people I'm a freelance video editor," Gonzalez agreed.

If the two are uneasy with their newfound celebrity, they aren't alone. None of the members think of themselves as famous, Villa said: "We'll still go to the store, and if someone's looking at us we're like, why are they looking at us?" She and others also said they sometimes struggle with self-doubt or imposter syndrome.

Being Latino in the public eye presents further challenges. Ferregur dealt with racist bullies while growing up in Carlsbad, but now online critics call her "whitewashed." And Villa has struggled to find an audience for Spanish-language TikToks; she instead focuses on making English and bilingual ones.

"It's a little harder for Latinos to actually grow if you're not doing something super mainstream," she said.

But their heritage has also made it easier for the Familia Fuego to bond with one another. TikTok content houses are common in L.A. the most famous of them, the Hype House, recently became a Netflix show but Gonzalez said a lot of them feel weirdly inauthentic, superficial or careerist.

"They do their video, and then they're just on their phone," he said. "Here, we have talked about our fears and dreams. We've been vulnerable. We've cried together and prayed together."

The difference, Villa and Zapien agreed, is that the Familia is built around a shared Latino identity every member can relate to.

Los Angeles is as good a place as any to do that. According to Brendan Nahmias, a manager at Whalar who helps oversee the house, all of the Familia members had enormous Angeleno followings even before they moved in together. Del Valle, the New Jerseyan, had a slightly larger following in New York; but the other four have always had their biggest fanbases in L.A., even when they weren't living in the area.

"Our demo is here," Gonzalez said. "Whenever we go to any sort of public place where it's Latinos we all have people there who know us."

The location also gives them easy access to Hollywood's Latino elite. Members of the Familia have been able to collaborate with Eva Longoria; eat dinner, while starstruck, with Mexican comedy powerhouse Eugenio Derbez; and attend the premieres of Latino-centric projects such as "West Side Story" and "Gentefied."

"When I was in high school, we had those fake Hollywood red carpets" at events such as homecoming, Del Valle said. "But to be on a real one was surreal."

As full-time influencers, the Familia Fuego are doing what is a dream job for many Americans. It's a dream that few people are able to realize, even as more and more money flows into the social media sector.

Were it not for DirecTV and Whalar recruiting them via an email everyone initially assumed was a scam; "Don't get too excited," Ferregur's parents warned her the Familia members might not have been able to pull it off, either.

"I wanted [social media] to be my job, but it wasn't, really," Ferregur said. "It was very unstable. I was just taking things day by day; I wasn't sure where it was gonna lead. But after coming into the house and being managed by [Nahmias] and Whalar, now it is a stable job."

The Familia aren't the first cohort to get that opportunity. Whalar previously ran an all-Black TikTok collective, The Crib Around the Corner, in partnership with DirecTV's then-parent company AT&T. (Sinda Mitchel, a senior vice president at Whalar, declined to say whether a third house is in the works, or what demographic it might focus on were one to happen.)

But the houses aren't charity projects. Both the all-Latino Familia and the all-Black Crib focused on fast-growing segments of DirecTV customers that are nevertheless "notoriously hard to reach through traditional channels," chief marketing officer Vince Torres said in an emailed statement. The houses were "developed to give DirecTV the ability to reach them in an authentic way."

Aside from slightly more pressure to do good work, all five Fuego members had only positive things to say about their relationship with DirecTV and Whalar, and were optimistic that their time in the house would set them up for future success. The financial underpinnings of their role free housing, food and travel stipends, production equipment, a studio and a paycheck, all in exchange for a fixed number of branded posts each month seem as benign and equitable as they could hope for. And it's easy to be enthusiastic about any effort to diversify the influencer landscape, which has been criticized for under representing and under paying creators of color.

"They're not just doing a cute Hispanic Heritage Month commercial," Gonzalez said. "They're literally funding the livelihoods of five creators."

Yet it remains unclear whether this blend of patronage and boutique sponsorship could scale up to the point where it would make a real dent in the broader platform dynamics that still make financial independence a far-off dream for most aspiring influencers, Latino or otherwise.

"The creator economy needs a middle class," venture capitalist Li Jin warned in 2020. Long-time social media creator Hank Green recently criticized TikTok for using a pay-out model untethered from corporate profits, making it hard for many users to earn a living. Even going repeatedly viral on the app isn't always enough to break even.

Even if more companies took the same hands-on approach to finding and funding emerging talent that DirecTV and Whalar have, they'd still be tackling the problem at a rate of five TikTokers every six months. TikTok, meanwhile, reportedly has more than a billion users and grows larger by the day.

Though it might not be a systemic solution to creator income inequality, the Familia Fuego project has at least given each member an individual career boost. Now, with just a few weeks left in their residency, they're looking to the future and to opportunities beyond TikTok.

Segueing into more traditional film and television work is everyone's "end goal," Ferregur said. She and Del Valle also hope to get involved with the fashion and beauty industries; Villa and Zapien are more inclined toward music. Gonzalez is currently working on a memoir.

But for the time being, TikTok is all of their main gig; and even if they see it as more of a stepping stone than a permanent position, it's still a welcome alternative to what they were doing beforehand.

"I don't expect for it to be forever but if it can be, that'd be so nice," Gonzalez said. "It's never felt like it could be a long-term thing, but right now it does."

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Five Latino TikTokers traded 9-to-5s for a Hollywood Hills house. This is how they live - Arizona Daily Sun

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True wealth. Its not just about money.Its also about dreams. Goals. Financial independence. Peace of mind and security. And the confidence of knowing that for every age and stage of your life you have a plan for your portfolio and financial future. This was the vision founders Levi McMellian and Brian Chastain had when they started considering what a comprehensive financial planning firm could really be more than 20 years agoone that was focused on the client above all else. And one that offered a full range of services that clients could access knowing they were receiving objective advice. Today, that vision has been realized with a double-digit asset growth since its inception and almost $2 billion in assets under management.

A personalized approach empowers you with the support of multiple professionals, delivering the complete package of wealth management servicesretirement planning, estate planning, tax services, and 401(k) management for employers. The firms relationships are built on a specific, selective fit process that elevates the ordinary client experience.

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Faces of Financial Wealth - D Magazine

Introduces Full Year 2022 Guidance

PHILADELPHIA, February 16, 2022--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Independence Realty Trust, Inc. ("IRT") (NYSE: IRT), a multifamily apartment REIT, today announced its fourth quarter and full year 2021 financial results.

Fourth Quarter Highlights

Net income available to common shares of $28.6 million for the quarter ended December 31, 2021 compared to $13.3 million for the quarter ended December 31, 2020.

Earnings per diluted share of $0.23 for the quarter ended December 31, 2021 compared to $0.14 for the quarter ended December 31, 2020.

Same store net operating income ("NOI") growth of 15.1% for the quarter ended December 31, 2021 compared to the quarter ended December 31, 2020.

Core Funds from Operations ("CFFO") of $31.0 million for the quarter ended December 31, 2021 compared to $19.7 million for the quarter ended December 31, 2020. CFFO per share was $0.24 for the fourth quarter of 2021, as compared to $0.21 for the fourth quarter of 2020.

Adjusted EBITDA of $42.3 million for the quarter ended December 31, 2021 compared to $28.5 million for the quarter ended December 31, 2020.

Completed our strategic merger with Steadfast Apartment REIT, Inc. ("STAR") on December 16, 2021, adding 68 properties aggregating 21,394 rentable units and two development properties aggregating 621 rentable units.

Full Year Highlights

Since the inception of our value add program in January 2018 through December 31, 2021, IRT has completed renovations at 4,672 units, achieving a weighted average return on investment of 20.2% on interior renovations and 18.0% on total renovation costs.

Net income available to common shares of $44.6 million for the year ended December 31, 2021 compared to $14.8 million for the year ended December 31, 2020.

Earnings per diluted share of $0.41 for the year ended December 31, 2021 compared to $0.16 for the year ended December 31, 2020.

Same store net operating income ("NOI") growth of 11.4% for the year ended December 31, 2021 compared to the year ended December 31, 2020.

Story continues

Core Funds from Operations ("CFFO") of $92.0 million for the year ended December 31, 2021 compared to $68.9 million for the year ended December 31, 2020. CFFO per share was $0.84 for the full year 2021, as compared to $0.73 for the full year 2020.

Adjusted EBITDA of $128.9 million for the year ended December 31, 2021 compared to $105.3 million for the year ended December 31, 2020.

2022 Guidance Highlights

Included later in this press release are definitions of NOI, CFFO, Adjusted EBITDA and other Non-GAAP financial measures and reconciliations of such measures to their most comparable financial measures as calculated and presented in accordance with GAAP.

Management Commentary

"2021 was an exceptional year for IRT underscored by outsized organic growth across the portfolio, as well as the completion of the STAR merger that cements our position as a leading multifamily REIT focused on the high growth U.S. Sunbelt region," said Scott Schaeffer, Chairman and CEO of IRT. "We delivered fourth quarter and full year same store NOI growth of 15.1% and 11.4%, respectively, supported by improvements in average occupancy rates and rental income. In addition, we continued to advance our high return value add program and drive accretive growth through asset acquisitions and dispositions, as well as joint venture relationships in new multifamily development."

"Looking ahead, we are excited for our next phase of growth, having doubled our property and unit count through our merger with STAR. Our integration efforts remain on-track, with our property and revenue management systems now fully implemented across all properties. In addition, we expect to achieve at least $28 million in annual synergies and effectively improve our leverage position. These advancements, along with our plans to continue to drive strong operating results, well position IRT to realize attractive growth in the multifamily sector for years to come."

Same Store Property Operating Results

Fourth Quarter 2021 Comparedto Fourth Quarter 2020(1)

Full Year 2021 Compared toFull Year 2020(1)

Rental and other property revenue

10.2% increase

8.4% increase

Property operating expenses

1.8% increase

3.8% increase

Net operating income ("NOI")

15.1% increase

11.4% increase

Portfolio average occupancy

90 bps increase to 95.7%

230 bps increase to 95.7%

Portfolio average rental rate

9.7% increase to $1,266

5.9% increase to $1,209

NOI Margin

280 bps increase to 65.6%

170 bps increase to 62.7%

(1)

Same store portfolio for the three and twelve months ended December 31, 2021 includes 47 properties, which represent 12,838 units.

Same Store Property Operating Results, Excluding Value Add

The same store portfolio results below exclude 18 communities that are both part of the same store portfolio and were actively undergoing Value Add renovations during the three and twelve months ended December 31, 2021.

Fourth Quarter 2021 Comparedto Fourth Quarter 2020(1)

Full Year 2021 Compared toFull Year 2020(1)

Rental and other property revenue

8.5% increase

6.1% increase

Property operating expenses

5.3% increase

4.0% increase

Net operating income ("NOI")

10.4% increase

7.4% increase

Portfolio average occupancy

80 bps increase to 96.6%

180 bps increase to 96.6%

Portfolio average rental rate

8.4% increase to $1,254

4.5% increase to $1,203

NOI Margin

100 bps increase to 64.6%

80 bps increase to 62.5%

(1)

Same store portfolio, excluding value add, for the three and twelve months ended December 31, 2021 includes 29 properties, which represent 7,034 units.

IRT and STAR Merger

On December 16, 2021, we completed our merger with STAR. Through the STAR Merger, we acquired 68 apartment communities that contain 21,394 units and two apartment communities that are under development and approved for 621 units in the aggregate. We acquired assets totaling $4.8 billion, assumed liabilities totaling $1.9 billion, and issued an aggregate of 99,720,948 shares of common stock and 6,429,481 IROP units in our merger with STAR. Leading up to and after the closing of the STAR Merger, we also successfully delevered the combined balance sheet through a combination of our July forward equity raise of $271 million on 16.1 million shares, the disposition of three STAR properties in November 2021 for a total sales price of $107 million, and the disposition of six IRT properties between December 2021 and February 2022 for a total sales price of $297 million.

Same Store Comparisons and STAR

As discussed above, we completed our merger with STAR, which more than doubled our property and unit counts. We will continue to follow our previous definition of same store and will formally add STAR to the same store pool on January 1, 2023 in accordance with our current same store definition. However, in 2022 we will begin presenting a Combined Same Store portfolio to help investors understand the larger same store portfolio. Weve included two new appendices this quarter. Appendix A shows the impact of consolidating STARs business for 2021. To aid in future modeling, we have added Appendix B, which provides the 2021 quarterly property operating results for the 2022 Combined Same Store portfolio. The following Operating Metrics and 2022 Guidance are presented considering these new same store portfolios. See the Definitions section of this release for full definitions of these new same store portfolios.

Operating Metrics

The table below summarizes operating metrics for the noted same store portfolios for the applicable periods.

4Q 2021

1Q 2022(3)

IRT Same Store Portfolio (47 properties / 12,838 units) (1)

Average Occupancy

95.7%

95.4%

Lease Over Lease Effective Rental Rate Growth (2):

New Leases

22.3%

20.3%

Renewal Leases

8.0%

11.3%

Blended

15.2%

14.3%

Resident retention rate

42.6%

48.4%

STAR Same Store Portfolio (62 properties / 19,860 units) (1)

Average Occupancy

96.1%

95.3%

Lease Over Lease Effective Rental Rate Growth (2):

New Leases

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Independence Realty Trust Announces Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2021 Financial Results - Yahoo Finance

"Both the investing and the creator ecosystems are severely broken and have remained beneficial to a very small and select group of people for far too long," said Tobias Heaslip, CEO and Founder of Trading.TV. "By combining content and trading capabilities on the same platform, we have created a completely new and materially enhanced user experience that will serve as the on-ramp for millions of people to get started on their investment journeys. Financial content creators can finally monetize their content while also helping to serve the public need."

Black and other minority investors come from a materially different starting point than other more affluent demographics the medium Black household holds just 10% of the wealth of the medium white household and while blacks constitute 13% of America's population, they hold less than 3% of its wealth. Combine that with younger generations -- across social-economic or racial backgrounds -- that are coming out of the pandemic wanting to take a more active role in their financial future. Trading.TV focuses on amplifying these diverse voices and empowering a new, younger generation of investors all in one place.

"Trading.TV is breaking down the barriers between high quality live content and trading decisions. We shouldn't have to learn about great companies on one platform and switch to another platform to make that trade," said Mercedes Bent, Partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners. "We've seen livestream shopping become extremely popular in other categories and with the quality of creators TTV is bringing onto their platform, we're excited to see the magic moments emerge. Tobias is also a phenomenal founder and we couldn't wait to be in business with him."

Trading.TV, which was on desktop only during beta, is now available on iOS and Android as well, with feature parity across all platforms. Here are some of the features you can expect today:

The company is also working closely with key next-gen financial rockstar creators to provide a new set of investors with the content and community they need to buy and sell a wide variety of assets beyond traditional stocks. In July 2021, Trading.TV announced a $1M Creator Fund to support the first group of creators joining the platform. Trading.TV has been using this Creator Fund to sign some of the best and most entertaining creators in the space. Some of the creators that have already joined the platform include: Group Chat, Asset Entities, OBR Investing, Nick Black, Bruno Crypto, Kamal Hubbard and Christon "The Truth" Jones. Brands and media companies have also joined the platform including; DeFiance Media, Benzinga, Grizzle, and the Meta Business Podcast. Trading.TV plans to grow the existing $1M Creator Fund significantly this year by funding it with up to 10% of its total platform revenue with the goal of making creators on TTV the highest-paid creators on the internet.

For more information, visit https://www.trading.tv/.

About Trading.TVTrading.TV is the world's first social livestream platform purpose-built for the next generation of traders and financial content creators. In an era where everything is an asset and everyone is a trader, Trading.TV offers the content, community and collaboration necessary to become an expert. We're dedicated to a future where anyone can Stream, Chat and Trade their way to financial independence. For more information, visit https://www.trading.tv/.

Media ContactKat Eller MurrayROAM Communications for Trading.TV [emailprotected][emailprotected]

SOURCE Trading.TV

Originally posted here:

To Amplify Diverse Voices and Empower a New Generation of Traders and Financial Content Creators, Trading.TV Raises $8 Million - PRNewswire

Women have always been known to be adept at managing money. However, they are not often considered experts or true partners in how money needs to be invested. Across the world, habitually, many financial matters are viewed through a gender lens. Everyone needs a plan, a guide to financial wellbeing.

Saving and investing money go hand in hand. It must begin early in life and ideally reflect your unique risk-return appetite. Your financial plan or your investment portfolio is much like an offspring you need to nurture it, give it time, be patient with it, and allow it to evolve with time and circumstance. A well thought-out financial plan will help you navigate the personal and financial tumult that life will throw your way.

Heres a step-by-step guide on how you can chart your route to a financially secure future:

The very first step to independence, financial or otherwise, is the ability to make informed decisions. To win the lottery, you must first buy the lottery ticket, goes the anecdote. A robust financial plan requires that you understand the basics of investing.

To plan your journey, you must know where you are starting from.

Now that you know how much you want and can invest, it is important to determine why you are investing and subsequently, where you should invest. Your why will drive your financial plan.

The power of compounding, dubbed as the eighth wonder of the world, helps grow your investments exponentially. It ensures that you earn interest on not just the principal you invested but also on the interest that is generated periodically.

Among the many things that the Covid-19 pandemic has taught us, one is that you can never be too prepared for the vagaries of life.

As is often said, nothing in life is certain but death and taxes.

In financial planning, a do-it-yourself (DIY) approach can often prove to be sub-optimal.

It is best to keep emotional and behavioral biases at bay.

Financial wellbeing is about being in control each day, financially, and feeling confident about the future. It really is as simple as thattake the initiative, create a plan, and stay disciplined. You are on your way to achieving both financial independence and true empowerment.

Original post:

Step-By-Step Guide For Women To Save And Invest - Forbes

Dr. Disha Spath is hosting with us again this week! Together, we answer questions about marriage, family, and finances. We talk about merging finances when you get married, 529 and UTMA accounts, how to manage complicated trusts, and how to add beneficiaries to trusts. We also discuss the importance of women getting their term life and disability insurance in place well before they become pregnant. There is a little something for everyone in this episode.

I think issue No. 1 when you're married is a lot of people are trying to keep separate finances for whatever reason. I don't know if it's a trust thing or they just don't want to make changes or if it's some power or control thing. I think that's really hard to do well. Now, I'm sure there are a few people out there that do it well, but almost all the financially successful couples I know have been through this process and they've merged their finances in some way. I think you're going down the path the right way, but there's no doubt that there are some changes. Especially the later you get married, the more complicated your financial lives are separately, the harder this merging process is going to be. Disha, where would you start?

There are opportunities here, too. For instance, if one of you has terrible credit, by adding your name to an account that's been around for 20 years, all of a sudden you have spectacular credit. You can do that with your kids too, by the way. I'm not sure if you can put them on an account that's older than them, but I bet you can. Then all of a sudden, your kids are in college and have an 810 credit score because they've got this 20-year credit history. There are some advantages there that you might not have thought about when you merge accounts. We have had merged finances since before we really had any money. It was really easy for us, and as our financial lives got more and more complicated, we just added things on as joint accounts. We have both our names on savings accounts, bank accounts, any checking accounts, brokerage accounts, and credit cards. Anything that can have two people's names on it, we have two people's names on it just to keep it easy. You can simply add the partner's name to the cards you want to keep.

There are definitely more opportunities there. You have to keep track of that stuff, though. I mean, that's like a spreadsheet if you have that many cards.

You can't combine retirement accounts. Retirement accounts are always individual401(k) is always just in your name. Your IRA is always just in your name, but if you're going to look at all your finances together, you've now got twice as many accounts to manage in your asset allocation. That will be a little bit of a complicated process. The two of you have to actually agree on an asset allocation and then adjust the accounts accordingly. That part might be a little bit tricky to combine.

You do need somewhere to combine everything so you can keep track of it. Whether you're doing it on a spreadsheet or whether you're using Personal Capital software or some other software. Mint also has similar functions.

The biggest obstacle, though, the reason people don't want to combine finances is because they don't want someone else telling them how to spend. We've gotten around that. We don't really do this anymore, but for a long time, we had allowances. It was money that we didn't have to account to our spouse for. When we were really poor in medical school, it wasn't very much money. I think there was at least one month where it was $20. But we had money that we could spend and we didn't have to account to the other person for. That amount can be whatever your budget allows that helps you feel like you still have some freedom, some independence, and yet you can still be efficient when it comes to managing your money.

I think the hardest part is getting your goals aligned once you've gotten together and then working out that budgeting process. I would expect with most couples, it probably takes six months at least. Keep at it, know that this too shall pass, and you can get your finances aligned and be working together toward goals. Because when both of you are working together, it's really powerful. You're going to get a whole lot closer to what you're trying to accomplish.

Yeah, for sure. You go from his income and her income to our income. His and her debts to our debts. His and her assets to our assets. One of you brought more income into the marriage. One of you brought more assets into the marriage. One of you brought more debt into the marriage. What are you going to do? Do you want to be married or not? It now becomes all ours, and you start working on it together. I wouldn't start working on it before you're married. Remember there are some legal protections that come with marriage, and I wouldn't combine your finances before that point. But once you're married, I do recommend you combine your finances.

Absolutely. You can't save receipts. You can save them until the end of the year, but by the end of the year, you have to take the money out or you're not taking it out based on that receipt. So not an option for you, but here's the deal. How much money are you putting in there? Most people don't get enough into their 529s to cover the educational costs for their kids. Plus, if you have a little too much in there, you know what most people do? Grandkids. You just change the beneficiary. It's not that big a deal if you have too much money in there.

If you're having significant K-12 educational expenses, then you might as well take advantage of the 529. If you have your kids in private school, you might as well run the money through the 529. Maybe you get a state tax break on it. Maybe you can let it grow for a year or two before you pull it out and get some tax-free earnings. But if your state is not giving you a state tax break, you're taking the money out immediately after you put it in the 529, maybe you don't want to bother. This is something for high earners. This is a tax break for the rich, if you will. Poor people don't use 529s because they don't have the money to put into 529s. So, take advantage of these things. These accounts are for you. As a high earner, you talk about all these downsides of being a high earner, right? You pay these high marginal tax rates and you have all these special taxes just for you. You're phased out of all kinds of deductions, but the 529, that one's for you. So be grateful and use it as best you can.

Your question sounds like an ad for UTMAs. UTMAs are a kid's brokerage. It's a custodial account. Your kids don't control it until 21 in most states. The age varies a bit by state. Until then, it's their money. So, if you spend it, you have to spend it on their behalf. Then when they hit that age, it's their money. The downside of this account is they can spend it on whatever they want. The upside is that it gets a significant tax break. It's around $1,200 a year that doesn't get taxed at all, assuming they don't have any other unearned income. Then, another $1,200 that gets taxed essentially at their earnings rate. That is up to about $2,400 a year in income that you are not paying at your tax rate. Now, if it earns more than that, you start paying what's called kiddie tax, which is at your tax rate. It gets paid on your tax return rather than their tax return, essentially, which is great. If you're investing tax-efficiently, you can put a lot of money in there before you get to $2,400 a year in income. I mean, the yield on a total stock market fund right now is well under 2%. You could have over $100,000 in there before you start paying it at your income tax rate.

We also use UTMAs. We have 529s for college. We have Roth IRAs for any earned money my kids have. Which is a lot for the teenager. She maxes out her Roth IRA now, but for the other ones, it's whatever we pay them for modeling, mostly, and maybe a few odd jobs and a lemonade stand and that's about it. We view the UTMA as a pretty significant fund. We call it the 20s fund and it's kind of a trial inheritance for them. Because if you think back to when you could really have used money, when you could have really used an inheritance from your parents, when was it?

You have all these expenses and you have no money and you have no ability to make money at any sort of a decent rate. That's when you need it. Whatever it might be. It might be a wedding, a honeymoon, a car, a down payment, missionary work, grad school. There are all kinds of expenses that you have in your 20s. The thing we like about that idea is we're giving them an inheritance, and then we see what they do with it. Before they get the real inheritance, we get to see how they manage a small inheritance. Now we know whether we put it in trust or something, because it turns out they need to spend through a trust. But hopefully, by the time they're out of their 20s, we know that because we've watched what they did with the first one.

You're definitely looking for UTMA. If you're just talking about putting tiny amounts of money in it, something like Acorns is probably really good. If you're going to be serious about it, though, I'd go wherever you put your accountswhether that's Fidelity or Vanguard or Schwab or whatever. But they've got minimums. Vanguard, I think, it's $1,000 minimum. If you're not going to put a thousand bucks in there, you probably don't want to start at Vanguard.

This next one isn't really a question but came from an email. It's something that somebody wrote to point out, and while I feel like I've said this before, I may not have been as adamant about this as I should have. This fact bears not only mentioning, but repeating.

As we all know, pregnancy isn't always planned. In fact, in the emergency department, the rate of immaculate conception is about 15%. People say there's no possible way I can be pregnant, and about 15% of them are. It's not actually having the dependent, it's plans to have a dependent in the near future. I'm not saying you have to do it when you're 25 and not planning to have kids until you're 35, but you need to have term life and disability insurance in place before you get pregnant.

I tell people to buy this stuff when you come out of residency. As far as disability, buy it when you come out of medical school; buy it as an intern. Now, that doesn't always mean before you have kids. But often it means for a doc before you have kids. But as far as term life goes, when someone depends on you, you need to have insurance. In this case, you could run into problems. It's not like you just get these medical problems during pregnancy; people die during pregnancy still. It's a lot safer than it used to be. But there was a sad story a couple of years ago. It might have even been an OB resident who died during childbirth and no insurance. It's a terrible, sad story. GoFundMe is not an insurance company. It breaks my heart when I see some newspaper article about some 25-year-old father of three, and there's GoFundMe at the bottom.

The main point is get your life insurance and get your disability insurance before you get pregnant. You don't need to buy it 10 years before you get pregnant. But as you're starting to think about starting a family, that's the time to get that insurance in place.

Congratulations on your success. You're doing awesome. You guys are really killing it. The fact is you say you're going to work five more years making this kind of money. I mean, your assets are going to be double what they are now five years from now. I suspect your spending habits probably aren't going to change all that much. What you really ought to be thinking about is what you're going to do about estate taxes, because you almost surely are going to have an estate tax problem. Start thinking at least a little bit about your estate planning.

This concept of stop playing when you've won the game,' comes from William Bernstein. The idea was to have a liability matching portfolio. Where your portfolio matches your future expected liabilities, and the idea is with the things that are going to match those liabilities, you don't take a lot of risk. Whether you're putting those into TIPS or I bonds or those sorts of things, relatively low-risk assets for the money you absolutely must have. Then everything else, you can take whatever risk you want, because as you mentioned, even if you lose half your assets in the market, you're still OK.

Next, is there something you can spend money on that is going to make your life happier? If there is, go spend the money. Whether that's upgrading a car, whether that's doing a renovation on your house, whether that's going on a trip, or, more likely, whether it involves changing something about how you're earning money. Maybe you take less call. Maybe you do fewer night shifts. Maybe you take every Friday off, whatever it might be. You need to, at this point, be looking at those sorts of things. Because otherwise, you're just going to be leaving a whole lot of money behind when you go, at the rate you guys are going. You can buy some of your life back by spending money on those items.

What other tips do you have for somebody making $900,000 a year who is planning to work five more years and already has $9 million? What do you tell that person?

But as far as the asset allocation, if you want to do what Bernstein says, basically go out and buy enough TIPS to cover all your future expenses, all your future mandatory expenses. Then you can take additional risk with the rest of the portfolio, but that's where the quote comes from that you've heard before to stop playing when you've won the game. TIPS are basically inflation indexed bonds. They're not a screaming deal right now; they actually have negative real yields right now. You go buy a five-year and it's around minus-1% real is what they're selling them at. But the idea was when you can get them with at least a 0% real or 1% or 2% real rate on them, then you could at least keep up with inflation with it without really taking on significant risk.

I think there's a little bit of confusionif not in your mind, then in the minds of some of our listeners. We're talking about two types of beneficiaries. When you make a trust, there's a trust document written up that talks about the beneficiaries of the trust. It's important not to confuse those beneficiaries with the beneficiaries of your retirement accounts, for instance, or your life insurance policies or your annuities or whatever. Those are set up by the trust document. The beneficiaries of your trust are from the trust document. What the trust document says, that's who's going to benefit from whatever is in the trust. However, what a lot of people want to do is they want all of their money when they die to go through the trust. If you want that to happen, the trust has to be named as the beneficiary. Usually, its not a secondary beneficiary; usually, its a primary beneficiaryunless the first beneficiary is your spouse and then the second to die, and it goes into the trust.

But how do you do that? Well, it depends on the institution. If you want to change the beneficiary of Vanguard, you log into vanguard.com. You get the text from your phone, you put that in there, and then you're in and you go to beneficiaries and you change it. That's all there is to it. You just do it online. You hit enter and you have new beneficiaries. You can change what percentage goes to everybody. It's super easy. Now, every institution might be a little bit different. If you want to change it under your life insurance policy, maybe you have to fill out their form and send it to them.

But this is an important part of setting up a trust. Because if you don't ever actually put anything in the trust, if you don't rename it so the trust owns it, or you don't make the trust the beneficiary of it, you just wasted a lot of money and time and effort on setting up a trust. If there's nothing in it, you're not helping anyone. That's an important part.

It sounds like you set up a trust a couple of years ago and you still haven't really funded it or gotten it all set up. Remember the first part doesn't do any good unless you do the second part. That might be, if this is a revocable trust and you're just trying to avoid probate with stuff, that might mean retitling your house, it might mean retitling your vehicles, your boat, whatever, setting up your will so that anything left over goes into the trust.You have to make sure you take care of all those steps.

If there's no beneficiary at all, it gets paid to your estate and that's not what you want. You want it to go to a person most of the time, or at least you want your trust set up so that it doesn't have to withdraw all at once. A bigger problem, I think, is people don't change their beneficiary when they need to. If you get divorced, change your beneficiaries. Otherwise, all your money's going to your ex. Evaluate those beneficiaries every now and then.

We had to google what QPSA is.

If you don't want your spouse to get an annuity, don't choose it. But here's the deal. Remember retirement accounts, the general goal and the general guideline the government has for retirement accounts is you can't screw over your spouse. You can't somehow keep your spouse from being protected also by your retirement account. When you move money out of a retirement account, a lot of times you need your spouse's signature to do it. You have to keep in mind that everything to do with the retirement account and how you get money out of it, they're thinking about your spouse. This sort of thing is put in place thinking, Well, what if my spouse doesn't know how to manage money? Let's put an option in there so they can just annuitize it. And my spouse will have an income for the rest of their life and doesn't have to think about it.'

They're coming from a good place with this sort of a suggestion, but if you don't want it to happen, you don't have to have it happen. Your spouse can just roll your retirement account into theirs when you die. It's just a simple rollover. Then they have a bigger IRA or a bigger 401(k) or whatever it gets rolled into. I hope that answers the question. QPSA is a new term to me. But it's just annuitizing the annuity or annuitizing the retirement account when you die.

I'm a do it yourself-er at heart. I'm not the most hardcore do-it-yourself-er on the street. But I'm pretty hardcore to do it yourself. But at this point in my life, I have three attorneys. We have an intellectual property attorney. We have a general business counsel attorney. We have an estate planning attorney. I'm working with a different attorney with my parents, for their estate planning. You know what? You're not going to be an expert in every trust, every legal question out there. You're going to need to use attorneys at some point in your life. And that's OK. Don't feel bad getting an attorney when you need an attorney and pay them what they're worth and get good advice. Don't be penny-wise and pound-foolish when it comes to that sort of a thing.

I think you're going to need to work with, if not those attorneys, if you really hate them for some reason, or you think they're giving you bad advice or you don't trust them, then sure, get new attorneys. But you're going to need attorneys, at least one, to help you sort this stuff out. This is the one that presumably your parents or grandparents trusted. Why not start there? Same with accountants. If you want to try to do your own trust tax returns, be my guest. If you want to do your own S corp returns, yes, they can be done by yourself. But at a certain point, you've got to go, I've been successful enough. Is this really how I want to use my time? Am I really qualified to do this?'

We now have an accountant doing WCI tax returns every year. They went back and they changed a couple of things. There were trivial things, but a couple of things that I was doing wrong on the S corp tax returns. If I'm getting things wrong on them, I know most white coat investors, if they try to do really complicated stuff on their own, are probably going to get some of it wrong.

Don't feel bad using an accountant. You certainly have the money for it, it sounds like. So do it yourself-ing is fine, but don't be a rabid do-it-yourself-er. Get advice when you need advice. And if that means talking to a financial advisor, a classic financial planner, asset manager type, to get a second opinion, I think that's a great step. It's fine to pay for some hourly advice for a second opinion. Lots of people do that every year, even though they manage their own assets. Honestly, when it comes to preparing your taxes, setting up wills and trusts and that sort of thing or managing your money, you might want some help. Asset management is not complicated. A handful of index funds is really all it takes, and you can do that. But don't assume that because you can do that, you can also handle all that other crap, too. There's room here to find a middle road and even room to get an advisor just to keep an eye on the other folks and make sure you're not getting hosed. It doesn't mean you have to pay them 1% of your assets the rest of your life. You can pay somebody a flat fee or an hourly rate to get that sort of a second opinion.

Pearson Ravitz are disability and life insurance advisors founded by and for physicians. This White Coat Investor-recommended agency grew out of one MD's experience with a career-changing on-the-job injury. Today, Pearson Ravitz serves the medical community in all 50 states. At Pearson Ravitz, they help you as a doctor safeguard your most valuable asset, your income, so you can protect the most important people in your life, your family. Pearson Ravitz makes human connections before they make quotes. Go to pearsonravitz.com today to schedule your consultation with a Pearson Ravitz advisor.

This one comes from Warren Buffett. He said,

People are going to try and sell you whatever they sell.

White Coat Investor and studentloanadvice.com are hosting a webinar for medical and dental students. The webinar is on February 23 at 6pm Mountain Time. It will stream on YouTube, the WCI Facebook group, the WCI Facebook page, Twitter, and on LinkedIn. We will be talking about:

If you did not get to attend WCICON22 but you want all of the awesome content, it will be available as an online course. Each year, we call this course Continuing Financial Education. This year's course is CFE 2022. It won't be available until around February 23, so be watching for that. Once the course goes live, you can access it at whitecoatinvestor.com/cfe2022.

There is value in persistence. Even if you do not have the highest income, if you persistently save a significant percentage of it and invest it in a reasonable way, eventually it grows to be quite a sum of money, and you will be free from the need to work for your money. A typical rule for financial independence is when you can live on 4% of your nest egg.

Dr. Disha Spath:Hi, and welcome to the White Coat Investor podcast number 250 Marriage, kids, and finances. I'm your host Disha Spath and I'm here with Dr. Jim Dahle.

Dr. Jim Dahle:Hey everybody.

Dr. Disha Spath:First, this podcast is sponsored by Pearson Ravitz. Pearson Ravitz are disability and life insurance advisors founded by and for physicians. This White Coat Investor recommended agency grew out of one MD's experience with a career-changing on-the-job injury.

Dr. Disha Spath:Today, Pearson Ravitz serves the medical community in all 50 states. At Pearson Ravitz, they help you as a doctor safeguard your most valuable asset, your income, so you can protect the most important people in your life, your family.

Dr. Disha Spath:Pearson Ravitz makes human connections before they make quotes. Go to pearsonravitz.com today to schedule your consultation with a Pearson Ravitz advisor.

Dr. Jim Dahle:All right, it's great. We are spending the whole weekend here together in Utah. We recorded last week's episode yesterday. We're recording this week's episode today. But the difference is we're recording this on January 29th before our big conference and you're listening to this after our big conference. So, we hope the conference went really well, but we can't actually say it did yet. We think it probably did because the people who are planning it and put in a ton of work, it's going to be awesome. But at this point, it's too late for you to go because the conference is over.

Dr. Disha Spath:Oh, too bad.

Dr. Jim Dahle:But if you want within the next week or so, we are going to have that content available to you as an online course. We call this course each year, Continuing Financial Education. And this year's course is CFE 2022, Continuing Financial Education 2022.

Dr. Jim Dahle:If you feel like you missed out, and if you didn't go, you did miss out, you can get that course at whitecoatinvestor.com/cfe2022. Now it may not be there by the day you hear this podcast, but within the next week or so, we're going to have that course available. So be watching for that.

Dr. Jim Dahle:But it's been a good weekend. We've had a lot of fun. We recorded podcasts yesterday all morning, and then we went snowshoeing. We got to fire the t-shirt cannon, which is going to be the highlight of the conference, we hope, if we don't take out any chandeliers in the ballroom.

Dr. Disha Spath:Exactly. Yeah. You're trusting me with a cannon.

Dr. Jim Dahle:Yeah, but we both practiced a lot. So, we think we can actually not take out anybody's eye. Then you went snowboarding today, right?

Dr. Disha Spath:We went skiing today.

Dr. Jim Dahle:Skiing.

Dr. Disha Spath:I learned how to ski. It was amazing.

Dr. Jim Dahle:And how'd that go?

Dr. Disha Spath:I actually got down the hill without wiping out too badly, so.

Dr. Jim Dahle:I see you and your husband here, neither of you with a broken leg.

Dr. Disha Spath:Okay. So that's a win.

Dr. Jim Dahle:The kids are still alive.

Dr. Disha Spath:So it was so fun. So beautiful.

Dr. Jim Dahle:Congratulations, Brighton, right?

Dr. Disha Spath:Yeah. Brighton.

Dr. Jim Dahle:I bet it was beautiful up there today. It was a sunny day.

Dr. Disha Spath:Oh, it's so pretty.

Dr. Jim Dahle:Yeah. Awesome. Okay. Well, today we got lots of fun stuff to talk about. Let's start with finances and marriage. Let's talk about marriage. This is really going to be an interesting one to answer because both of our spouses are in the room here with us. So, we'll see what this question is, but I'm afraid of where it's going to go. All right. Let's take a listen.

Dr. Disha Spath:Let's do it.

Speaker:Dr. Dahle, I love your show and appreciate all the work you put into it. One topic that I was hoping to learn some more about is finances and marriage. I'm getting married in the spring and I'm fortunate enough to have found a truly wonderful woman with whom I share values.

Speaker:And while we aren't having difficulties or disagreements about dollars, we realize that there are a lot of decisions and things to do to become an organized merged household. And one, I didn't know if you had any idea of kind of a checklist about how to kind of get your home in order, financially, or if you had any tips or tricks about things such as merging credit cards or car insurance, how to compare and contrast and optimize retirement accounts. How to look at banking, how different couples manage having pretty different incomes, and many other tips or tricks, I'd appreciate.

Dr. Jim Dahle:All right. Well, I think issue number one when you're married is a lot of people are trying to keep separate finances when they're married for whatever reason. I don't know why. I don't know if it's a trust thing or they just don't want to make changes, or if it's like some power or control thing. I think that's really hard to do well. Now, I'm sure there's a few people out there that do it well, but almost all the financially successful couples I know have been through this process and they've merged their finances in some way.

Dr. Jim Dahle:So, I think you're going down the pathway the right way, but there's no doubt that there's some changes. And especially the later you get married, the more complicated your financial lives are separately, the harder this merging process is going to be. Disha, where would you start?

Dr. Disha Spath:What we did, when Josh and I got married was we picked one bank where we would have our checking account, that we would pull everything else into. And Josh has access to USA. So that was amazing. It's a great service that they do.

Dr. Disha Spath:All we do is we link our credit cards, all of our credit cards, whether they're his or mine, all of our checking accounts, into one platform and USA enables that. I think most banks do that now. You can pull the data in from all the different places you might be spending money, all the different cards you might be spending money on so that it all shows up in one place. And that's really key because when you're trying to go over all of your spending, you want to know where all your accounts are. And it's really nice to see them in one place.

Dr. Jim Dahle:Yeah. There are opportunities here too. For instance, if one of you has terrible credit, by adding your name to an account that's been around for 20 years, all of a sudden you have spectacular credit. You can do that with your kids too, by the way. I'm not sure if you can put them on an account that's older than them, but I bet you can. And all of a sudden, your kids are in college and have an 810-credit score because they've got this 20-year credit history. So, there's some advantages there that you might not have thought about when you merge accounts.

Dr. Jim Dahle:But we've got everything completely merged. We've had merged finance since before we really had any money. And so, it was really easy for us as our financial lives got more and more complicated, we just added things on as joint accounts.

Dr. Jim Dahle:All our credit cards, we have both our names on savings accounts, bank accounts, any checking accounts, brokerage accounts. Anything that can have two people's names on it, we've got two people's names on it just to keep it easy and joint.

Dr. Jim Dahle:But how do you do that? What I would do is just pick the credit card you like. If somebody's got a really good credit card, add your name to it. They got some awesome gas cards that you can't get anymore. Like, we've got this PenFed one you can't even get anymore, but it gives you 5% back on gas. It's what we put all our gas on. So, if one person had a card like that, put the other person's name on it. Great.

Dr. Disha Spath:Yeah. And you can actually use that if you're trying a credit card hack. Chase has five cards. You can only get five cards in five years, I think. So, each spouse can then open up five cards in five years. And so, you double your point-earning opportunities.

Dr. Jim Dahle:Yeah. There are definitely more opportunities there. You got to keep track of that stuff though. I mean, that's like a spreadsheet if you got that many cards.

Dr. Disha Spath:Well, I put it all in Personal Capital. We're good to go.

Dr. Jim Dahle:Yeah. If you keep track of it, keep track of it. Retirement accounts, you can't combine. Retirement accounts, always individual. 401(k) is always just in your name. Your IRA is always just in your name, but if you're going to look at all your finances together, you've now got twice as many accounts to manage in your asset allocation. So that's going to be a little bit of a complicated process. The two of you have to actually agree on an asset allocation and then adjust the accounts accordingly. So that part might be a little bit tricky to combine.

Dr. Disha Spath:Personal Capital.

Dr. Jim Dahle:Personal Capital does it well, it sounds like.

Dr. Disha Spath:Not sponsored. Not sponsoring today, but they should be.

Dr. Jim Dahle:Somebody go get an affiliate deal with Personal Capital. Actually, I think just about every blogger, but us has a Personal Capital deal. I don't think we have them as a sponsor, but yeah, we could probably go get one. But it does work.

Dr. Jim Dahle:But you need something to combine everything so you can keep track of it. Whether you're doing it on a spreadsheet, whether you're using Personal Capital software or some other software. Mint, I think, has similar functions.

Dr. Disha Spath:Yeah. And it actually breaks down your asset allocation for you. Look up all the accounts and it just pulls in exactly what you're invested in so you can see.

Dr. Jim Dahle:Okay. So, the biggest obstacle though, the reason people don't want to combine finances is because they don't want someone else telling them how to spend.

Dr. Disha Spath:That's true. That's true.

Dr. Jim Dahle:We've gotten around that. We don't really do this anymore, but we do this for a long time. We have allowances. It was money that we didn't have to account to our spouse for. And when we were really poor in medical school, it wasn't very much money. I think there was at least one month where it was $20.

Dr. Jim Dahle:But we had money that we could spend and we didn't have to account to the other person for. And, so if you feel like I don't want someone telling me how to spend, just set it up so you have allowances. And doesn't have to be $20, it can be $20,000, whatever your budget allows. But enough that you feel like you still have some freedom, some independence, and yet you can still be efficient when it comes to managing your money.

Dr. Disha Spath:Absolutely. We have fun funds too. And you brought up your really fun topic, budgeting. My favorite. Okay. I understand I am the only person that is excited about that. You know what? Josh and I sit down and budget at the end of every month and we run through our

Dr. Jim Dahle:It'd be nice if you could do it once a year, huh?

Dr. Disha Spath:Yeah, that would be nice. But that wouldn't be very accurate.

Dr. Jim Dahle:Tell us, what does your budgeting meeting look like?

Dr. Disha Spath:We have a spreadsheet, a Google Doc that we update together. We have computers facing each other, so it's very official looking. We sit down and we look at all of our spending and we put it all in a spreadsheet. And if something looks a little off or someone's spending too much, we point it out nicely, but we try not to judge too much.

Dr. Disha Spath:It helps us keep everything together. We both know where the money is going and we both know how we need to adjust for the next month, and then neither one has to tell the other person exactly what to do, the spreadsheet shows you. So that's nice.

Dr. Jim Dahle:That's probably the hardest part, I think, is getting your goals aligned once you've gotten together, and then working out that budgeting process. I would expect most couples, it probably takes six months. Probably takes doing this six times before you are kind of getting it right. And most of the disagreements you're going to have are going to come out in those first six months.

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Merging Finances , 529 plans, and Trust Beneficiaries - The White Coat Investor

Zero-commission trading platforms have become more popular in recent years as more and more people look to get into investing. Retail investors, as nonprofessional investors are known, are seeking greater control over their finances and, ultimately, financial independence outside the limits of a 9-to-5 career.

In 2017, the trading platform Webull was founded. The company has seen strong growth ever since. CEO Anthony Denier said its key differentiator was the substantial market data it provided to help educate retail investors.

"We're the only mobile platform that provides data and analytics to all who download our app, void of any paywalls or brokerage-application requirements," Denier said, adding that Webull is "currently offering more than 50 analytical tools to make sense of our vast amounts of market data."

Trading platforms captured the public imagination in January, when members of a Reddit forum collectively agreed to buy shares in GameStop, a struggling video game retailer. This hurt hedge fund investors that had bet on its share price to tank.

As GameStop's share price rocketed, those hedge fund short-sellers lost billions. This was a tipping point for trading, shining a light on platforms that allow anyone to take part in the market, Denier said. Fifteen million people were using Webull as of January.

What's more, the coronavirus pandemic has also increased day trading's popularity, having prompted both government stimulus and fewer entertainment options during shelter-in-place restrictions. The market hit all-time highs, making it attractive to retail investors.

"We saw a culmination of social media and stock market awareness that has never been achieved before," Denier said. "It truly opened the idea of 'investing for all' to everyone across the globe." Webull offers fractional trading, which means investors can buy a small part of a stock, starting at just $5. The platform is also seamlessly available across desktop, mobile, smartwatches, and tablets, and with Webull's latest upgrade users can easily customize their dashboards.

Security is a key topic, no matter which level a trader is at. Denier's advice is to take investing at a pace that works for you. "Make sure you are dealing with a reputable broker or other financial institution," he said. "Secondly, do not trade or invest with money that you are not prepared to lose. Do not trade with your rent money! Start slow and refrain from putting all your cash to work on one single idea or opportunity. Spread the risk." Denier should know he started his career at Credit Suisse and spent many years as an institutional trader before running companies.

One way to try out trading but without the risk is to try "paper trading" on Webull, Denier said. "This free product allows people to test out investing with virtual money before they start using their real own dollars," he explained. "We believe that experiential knowledge can be the most beneficial for traders to build confidence and understanding."

Webull hopes to help people level up from intermediate to experienced trading: It provides users with real-time stock quotes from exchanges such as the Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange, meaning traders can get detailed information on who is buying and selling stocks, as well as their prices.

The platform has big ambitions: Its new sponsorship of the basketball teams the Brooklyn Nets and the New York Liberty marks its first foray into global sports partnerships. "As the CEO of a New York company, I could not be more thrilled to be partnering with these dynamic organizations while giving back to our communities," Denier said. Webull plans to work with both teams to implement STEM programs meant to benefit underserved populations in Brooklyn and beyond.

The partnership also underscores Webull's undertaking to help people upskill financially. "We make it our mission to help all people grow their knowledge of trading and investing," he said. Webull wants everyone to be able to use what Denier called "the most powerful wealth-creation tool for the past century: the stock market."

He added: "It definitely drives this amazing revolution we are so proud to take part in."

Learn more about how Webull can help investors level up their trading performance.

This article was created by Insider Studios with Webull.

Neither Insider Studios nor Webull are offering financial advice in this article.

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Improve Your Trading With Tips From the CEO of an Investing Platform - Business Insider

HomeGoods will open Thursday in Longview Mall, at 3500 McCann Road.

The 25,075-square-foot store is opening in the space previously occupied by Sears, following renovations that included enlarging the space.

HomeGoods, which describes itself as an "off-price home dcor store," says its prices are "generally 20% to 60% below full-price retailers (including department, specialty, and major online retailers) regular prices on comparable merchandise...."HomeGoods sells furniture, rugs, lighting, decorative accessories, kitchen and dining items, bedding, bath, kids dcor and toys, pet accessories and more.

Our amazing values, brand names, and vast assortment make HomeGoods an exciting destination for shoppers, said John Ricciuti, president of HomeGoods, in a prepared statement. With a large variety of merchandise from around the world, customers will always find thrilling values in our treasure hunt shopping experience. We are happy to provide Longview with a new HomeGoods.

Store hours are 9:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday, with Senior Shopping Hours from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays. Store hours might shift. Visit HomeGoods.com/locator for information.

In celebration of the new store location, HomeGoods said it is contributing $10,000 to Family Promise of Longview, a nonprofit organization that provides shelter, meals, training and other services to help struggling families find employment, permanent housing and financial independence.

HomeGoods, a part of TJX Cos., operates more than 820 stores across the country, 4,600 stores in nine countries, and four e-commerce sites.

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HomeGoods to open Thursday in Longview | Local | news-journal.com - Longview News-Journal