The largest mammal on earth... But, in wealth management whales are massive planning wins that bring enough value to cover fees for the next several years. They occur outside the scope of annual planning items, and materialize due to an ongoing planning relationship. Although infrequent and not guaranteed, engaged clients and advisors should hopefully see them occur once every 5-10 years.

John is a real person whose name and situation has been slightly altered to maintain confidentiality. John wanted to sell all $1.5 million of his stocks in March 2020 when equities were down roughly 35%. By having a detailed conversation on whether he needed those funds for his life (he didn't), or if they would simply be inheritance (they would be) we concluded he should keep the stock positions. By holding rather than switching to cash, he was over $1 million better off by the end of that year.

Jane is a real person whose name and situation has been slightly altered to maintain confidentiality. Jane was a qualified purchaser, and had been approached for a private equity investment. After helping her perform due diligence, we recommended she open up a self directed Roth IRA to hold the limited partnership, rather than her taxable investment account she had originally considered. The $250,000 investment had a 4x multiple growing to $1 million, and being nearly all tax free rather than having the $750,000 in gains subject to capital gains tax at her highest tax bracket.

James is a real person whose name and situation has been slightly altered to maintain confidentiality. James needed to take a distribution of $300,000 from his taxable investment account. However, he had bought his ETF position at multiple times throughout the past and had significant gains. By utilizing tax lot optimization on his S&P 500 ETF rather than First In, First Out (what he had assumed was best) and selling the highest basis tax lots we were able to reduce his taxable gain from $150,000 down to roughly $25,000. This saved tax liability on $125,000 while achieving the exact same outcome.