Every February, I open one envelope with unusual curiosity: my 1099 from our custodian. It shows how much “income” my investments produced last year.

As an investor, I appreciate what that number represents. As a taxpayer, I also know what comes next: plugging it into a projection and watching how it changes what we’ll owe in April.

For me, it’s manageable. I’m still early in my career, and my portfolio is mostly stocks. But for many of the families we serve at Hill, this number can grow large enough that it doesn’t only affect their tax return — it starts to affect their entire financial plan.

And historically, there hasn’t been much we could do about it… until now. 

Longview Advantage Fixed Income ETF (LVIG) is an ETF from our research partner, Longview Research Partners. Its aim is to solve a part of planning we historically could not control: Traditional bond investments generate taxable income whether you need it or not.

LVIG is built to avoid those automatic income distributions. Meaning more of the return stays inside the portfolio, which gives us control over how income shows up in your plan.

Like EBI, LVIG will be used inside Hill’s models. It may not be noticeable for younger, equity-heavy investors today. But as portfolios shift over time toward a higher allocation of fixed income, LVIG becomes a meaningful planning tool as well as an outstanding investment.

1. Roth IRA conversions: Less portfolio income means more flexibility to convert traditional Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs) to Roth IRAs during lower-income years.

2. Asset location: We can comfortably hold fixed income in taxable accounts and reserve IRA and Roth space for equities, where long-term growth benefits most.
   
   
3. Medicare and income cliffs like IRMAA (Income-Related Monthly Adjustment Amount), NIIT (Net Investment Income Tax), AMT (Alternative Minimum Tax):  Keeping income lower makes it easier to stay below thresholds that trigger higher premiums and additional taxes.
   
   
4. Trust planning: Trusts hit top tax brackets more quickly than individual tax brackets. Therefore, minimizing ordinary income allows trustees to distribute based on need, not tax pressure.
   
   
5. Estate planning and step-up in basis: More return remains to compound as unrealized growth that may receive a step-up for heirs instead of getting taxed each year.
   
   
6. Capital gains control: Lower income gives us more favorable opportunities to harvest gains at lower tax rates.
   
   
7. Retirement cash flow: We can create distributions intentionally by selling shares at long-term capital gains tax rates rather than generating unpredictable taxable income.

Most of these benefits become especially impactful for clients who are retired or approaching retirement, have large taxable portfolios, are doing Roth conversions, have trusts, or are mindful of Medicare premium thresholds.

For younger clients, this may feel less important today. But over time, as allocations shift toward bonds, it becomes one of the more impactful planning levers available.

This is a good example of the subtle but powerful improvements we like making for clients at Hill Investment Group. Changes that not only improve your investment outcomes, but also make your plan work better behind the scenes.

While LVIG is something we are bringing to Hill portfolios, it will be a publicly traded ETF and available to all investors. Therefore, if you know someone navigating retirement, taxes, or trust planning who could benefit from greater flexibility, feel free to share this with them or have them reach out to us directly to see how we can be most helpful. Here’s the best link to get in touch with us.

Personal finance advice reaches most people through magazines, TV, bestsellers, podcasts, and radio, not through academic researchers.

In this episode of The Behavioral Divide, Professor Hal Hershfield talks with Yale finance professor James Choi about what he found after analyzing the 50 most popular personal finance books. They discuss where the books get it right, where they diverge from the evidence, and which academic findings could meaningfully strengthen real-world advice.

This podcast is a clear reminder to stay grounded in what the data supports, especially when the loudest guidance is often the easiest to oversimplify. Looking for additional research? Reach out to us to talk more about this. 

If 2025 reinforced anything, it is how quickly markets can test conviction and how costly it can be to react emotionally or narrowly. 

By April 8, the S&P 500 was down 15%, driven largely by Liberation Day and the sudden imposition of global tariffs. Volatility spiked, sentiment deteriorated, and the narrative quickly shifted toward protectionism and questions around US leadership.

Then, just one day later, markets delivered a stark reminder of how unpredictable short-term moves can be.

On April 9, the S&P 500 experienced one of the largest single-day rallies in history, with the S&P 500 rising 9.5% in a single session. Note: That one-day gain is larger than the average annual return of the S&P 500 since it’s existed. Investors who had de-risked or moved to the sidelines in response to the drawdown were not there to participate.

Despite being down double digits just three months into the year, the S&P 500 finished 2025 up nearly 18%, an outcome that few would have predicted during the spring selloff.

But the more important story was not just that markets recovered. It was where the returns came from. Global markets, as measured by the MSCI ACWI index were up 23%.

The Case for Global Diversification

2025 was a powerful reminder that returns rotate, often abruptly, and often away from what has worked most recently.

• US Market (S&P 500): +18%
• International Developed ex US (MSCI World ex US Index): +33%
• International small value (MSCI World ex US Small Value Index): +40%
• Emerging Markets (MSCI Emerging Markets Index): +34%

Investors who reduced international exposure or concentrated further into US equities, often justified by recent outperformance, materially underperformed what markets ultimately delivered.

International small value in particular was one of the strongest performers globally, with the ETF we use, the Avantis International Small Value ETF, returning 50% for 2025!

The Bigger Lesson

Markets do not reward confidence in narratives. They reward discipline. Investing in all types of markets and staying invested in all Markets.

Short term drawdowns are uncomfortable. Large single day rallies are unpredictable. The investors who captured 2025 returns were not those who timed exits or chased recent winners. They were those who stayed invested, stayed diversified, and allowed markets to do what they have historically done over time.

In years like 2025, the value of diversification is not theoretical. It is measurable.

And it is earned by maintaining exposure when doing so feels hardest.