Michael McGinnis, Financial Advisor at Morgan Stanley

10/30/2026

US equities fell sharply Friday, with the S&P 500 posting its worst day since June, as investors faced deepening anxiety over the AI trade. Read more in the 1% Move report.

morganstanley.com

10/26/2026

Your portfolio needs more than a driver. One club can't cover every shot.

There's a difference between owning 14 great golf clubs and having a well-built set. If several clubs cover the same distance—or there are significant gaps in the bag—the individual clubs may be excellent, but they may not work well together.

The same can be true of your financial life.

Over time, you may accumulate investment accounts, insurance policies, retirement plans and estate documents. Each decision may have made sense when it was made, but your circumstances—and your goals—can change.

Without coordination, you could have:

➤ Overlapping investments and unintended concentration
➤ Insurance coverage that no longer fits your needs
➤ Beneficiary designations that conflict with your estate plan
➤ Investment, retirement and tax strategies that don't work together efficiently

Comprehensive financial planning isn't always about adding another product or finding a new investment. Sometimes it's about identifying what's redundant, what's missing and what no longer serves its original purpose.

Because owning a collection of good investments doesn't necessarily mean you have a coordinated financial plan.

We can help: https://advisor.morganstanley.com/michael.mcginnis

⛳ Is there a club in your bag you've carried for years but almost never use?

10/26/2026

You practice swing won't win the round.
Your retirement projection won't either.

You can make a beautiful practice swing.
Perfect tempo.
Perfect balance.
Perfect path.

Everything feels right.

Then you step up to the ball.
And suddenly, everything changes.
Because now the shot counts.

There's a similar moment in financial planning.
It's called retirement.

For years, you've been working toward a financial goal.
You've saved and invested.
You've contributed to retirement accounts.
You've reviewed projections showing how much income you should be able to generate.
You know how long your money should last, and what kind of lifestyle you can afford.

And on paper, everything looks pretty good.

But there's a big difference between projecting retirement and actually living it.

When you're working, market downturns can be uncomfortable.
But if you're still earning a paycheck and contributing to your investments, you may have time to recover.

Once you retire – the equation changes.

➤ You're no longer adding to your savings. You're withdrawing from them.
➤ Market declines can occur at the same time you're relying on your portfolio for income.
➤ Unexpected expenses don't stop just because your paycheck does.
➤ And decisions that looked relatively straightforward on a spreadsheet can feel very different when you're making them with money you've spent decades accumulating.

One of the most important risks to understand is sequence-of-returns risk.
➔ It's not just how much your investments earn over the course of retirement that matters.
➔ It's when those returns occur.

➔ Two retirees can experience the same average investment returns over time but have very different outcomes depending on whether significant market losses happen early or late in retirement.
➔ That's because withdrawing money from a declining portfolio can leave fewer assets available to participate in a subsequent recovery.

It's one reason retirement income planning involves more than determining whether you've accumulated enough money.

It means considering:
✦ How you'll generate income,
✦ Where withdrawals will come from,
✦ How you'll respond to changing market conditions,
✦ And what adjustments you may need to make along the way.

A retirement plan shouldn't depend on everything going exactly as projected.
🚩 It should be designed to help you navigate the things that don't.

Because eventually, every golfer has to stop taking practice swings and step up to the ball.
🚩 And every retirement plan has to make the transition from numbers on a spreadsheet to decisions in real life.

The practice swing doesn't count. What matters is how you play when it does.

We can help: https://advisor.morganstanley.com/michael.mcginnis

⛳️ What's the biggest difference between your practice swing and your actual swing?

10/22/2026

The S&P 500 closed lower Thursday, as investors weighed concerns on the size of the AI capital expenditure buildout. Read more in the 1% move report.

morganstanley.com

10/16/2026

US equities retreated Friday as elevated financing costs amplified concerns surrounding return on investment from the AI capex buildout. Read more in the 1% Move report.

morganstanley.com

10/15/2026

US equities fell sharply on Wednesday, as a hotter-than-expected September CPI report prompted a hawkish repricing of near-term expectations for Fed policy. Read more in the 1% Move report:

morganstanley.com

10/03/2026

Looking for a clear, approachable introduction to the fundamentals of investing? Then join us Monday, July 6 for "Intro to Investing: Stocks, Bonds and Beyond," part of our Wealth Education for the Next Generation series. We'll break down how the stock market works and explore the roles of stocks, bonds and other investment vehicles within a broader financial strategy. Register Here: https://morganstanley.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_npAKbBSJTc-JR9I3e3Fsww?gv6=e601e21e-e993-4850-aad5-1a80f8cc89ab

zoom.us

09/29/2026

Your net worth is lot like your golf score.
The number doesn't tell the whole story.

Two golfers can both shoot 82 and play two completely different rounds.

One hits 12 greens but can't make a putt.
The other misses greens all day but keeps scrambling to save par.

🏌️‍♂️Same score. Very different round.

Net worth can work the same way.

Two people can each have a net worth of $2 million and appear to be in virtually identical financial positions.

🚩Until they retire.

That's when what's behind the number starts to matter a lot more.

Consider these two households.

The first has $1.2 million spread across retirement and taxable investment accounts.
$500,000 in home equity.
$300,000 in cash and short-term reserves.

The second also has a $2 million net worth.
But $1.3 million is tied up in a privately held business.
$500,000 is home equity.
$150,000 is in retirement accounts.
And only $50,000 is readily accessible.

Same net worth.
But suppose both want to retire at 65.

➔ The first household already has several pools of financial assets that potentially can be used to create retirement income.

➔ The second household faces a different challenge.
➔ Most of its wealth is tied up in the business and the house.
➔ The business may have produced a very good living for years. But when the owner wants to stop working, that $1.3 million valuation has to become something that can help fund retirement.

Suddenly, the same $2 million doesn't look quite the same.
🚩That's because retirement changes the job your wealth has to do.

✔️ During your working years, you're generally earning income and accumulating assets.
✔️ In retirement, those assets may have to start producing the income that used to come from your paycheck.

And where that money comes from can affect the taxes you pay and how much remains invested for the years ahead.

That's why, as retirement approaches, the most useful question isn't simply:
➤ What's my net worth?

It's also:
➤ What is my wealth actually made of – and is it positioned to do what I'll need it to do?

In golf, an 82 tells you the final score.
It doesn't tell you how you played the round.

Your net worth works much the same way.
The number matters.
But as you approach retirement, what's behind the number matters much more.

We can help: https://advisor.morganstanley.com/michael.mcginnis

⛳ Would you rather shoot 82 hitting 12 greens and putting terribly – or scramble all day to the same score?

09/23/2026

Why financial planning needs more layups.
The best move may be the boring one.

Golfers remember the heroic shots.

The long carry over water.
The shot through the trees.
The one where everything had to go exactly right.

They don't talk nearly as much about the decision to lay up –
➤ Taking the safer shot.
➤ Putting the ball in a better position –
➤ And giving yourself a better chance on the next one.

Financial planning has plenty of layups too.

They're the decisions that may not produce an immediate or dramatic payoff but put you in a stronger financial position going forward.

📈 Keeping enough cash on hand so you don't have to sell investments during a market downturn.

📈 Paying down high-interest debt rather than chasing a potentially higher investment return.

📈 Rebalancing when a strong market has quietly pushed your portfolio beyond the level of risk you intended to take.

📈 Increasing retirement contributions when your income rises instead of automatically increasing your lifestyle instead.

📈 Reviewing beneficiaries, insurance coverage, and estate documents before a life change turns an outdated decision into a problem.

None of these moves is particularly exciting. You probably won't tell your friends about the afternoon you updated your beneficiaries or increased your 401(k) contribution.

But financial progress isn't always created by one brilliant investment or perfectly timed decision.

Often, it's the accumulation of smaller decisions that:
✔️ Reduce unnecessary risk.
✔️ Preserve flexibility.
✔️ And give you more choices when circumstances change.

That's what a good layup does.

You aren't giving up on getting where you want to go.
Sometimes the smartest shot is the one that puts you in the best position for what comes next.
Are layups part of your financial planning? We can help: https://advisor.morganstanley.com/michael.mcginnis

⛳️ What's the smartest layup you've ever made on a golf course?

09/22/2026

Golf coaches see what you can't.
So can a financial advisor.

You can't see your own swing.

You may know the ball keeps going right.
You can feel something is off.
You can even try to correct it yourself.

🚩But what you think you're doing in your backswing and what you're actually doing can be two very different things.

🏌️‍♂️That's why even professional golfers have coaches watching from the outside.

Financial planning isn't all that different.

Most successful people aren't making obviously bad financial decisions.
The bigger risk is often something they don't realize they're overlooking.

And that's why successful investors have a financial advisor coordinating their whole picture.

A good advisor isn't just choosing investments or telling you whether you're saving enough.
They're standing outside your financial life, looking at everything –
✔️ Your investments
✔️ Taxes
✔️ Retirement income
✔️ Estate plan
✔️Insurance
✔️ And cash flow.

📈 They're overseeing how the decisions you're making in one area affect everything else.

➔ Maybe you've accumulated a large position in your company's stock and don't recognize how much of your retirement now depends on one company.

➔ Maybe you're withdrawing from your accounts in an order that creates more taxable income than necessary.

📈 An advisor is looking several years ahead to identify opportunities to –
➔ Manage tax brackets.
➔ Stay on top of Medicare premiums.
➔ Be proactive with future required minimum distributions before those decisions are made for you.

Sometimes the blind spot isn't inside the portfolio at all.

➤ Your investments may be performing exactly as intended while an outdated beneficiary designation undermines your estate plan.
➤ Or you may have enough assets to retire comfortably but haven't built a cash-flow strategy that prevents you from selling equities when the market is down to fund spending.

That's where perspective matters.

A golf coach isn't there because a professional doesn't know how to swing a club.

And a financial advisor isn't there because a successful person doesn't know how to manage money.

Blind spots are easier to see from the outside.

Sometimes you just need someone with the experience – and the vantage point – to see what you can't.

⛳️ What part of your golf swing has been hardest for you to figure