Articles, insights and analysis.

December retail sales declined 1.9% month-over-month (-2.4% adjusted for inflation); missing forecasts. Retail spending declined 1.9% in December, following a 0.2% gain in November, suggesting that elevated inflation levels are beginning to weigh on consumers. December data showed softer spending at furniture, electronics, and sporting goods stores and a more meaningful dip in online spending […]

January 13, 2021 Kalamazoo, MI – Greenleaf Trust announces CTFA designation Senior Trust relationship associate receives Certified Trust and Fiduciary Advisor designation Kathryn Gadbois Schafer, J.D., CTFA, a senior trust relationship associate in Kalamazoo, Michigan was recently awarded the Certified Trust and Fiduciary Advisor (CTFA) designation from the American Bankers Association. Kathryn is responsible for […]

Consumer prices rose at the fastest annual pace in nearly 40 years last month, setting the stage for the start of Federal Reserve interest rate increases as soon as March – a dramatic shift from the policy timelines projected as recently as a few months ago. Looking forward, we believe normalizing demand, tighter policy, and […]

Continuous improvement is one of Greenleaf Trust’s core values – it is a pillar of our culture and has become part of our DNA. Every tangible improvement we have made on behalf of our clients stems from a disciplined review of our practices. As we look for opportunities to serve our clients better, we begin […]

Happy New Year to all! I hope that you were able to celebrate the new year with reflective gratitude and the grace of optimism as we look forward to the promise and challenges of 2022. This column is written and published each month just as it has been for the past thirty years. Wow, how […]

We believe meaningful recognition should be appropriate and deserved. It should be acknowledgement for a job well done. At the end of the year, we announced the following 20 promotions. These were teammates from throughout the organization who successfully executed customized purposeful growth plans with their coaches. Promotions are always based on merit at Greenleaf […]

Back in July, we published our 2021 mid-year market review. Having hosted a virtual year-in-review seminar in January, the article highlighted how much changed in the first six months of 2021. An increasingly vaccinated population rediscovered a sense of normalcy. The optimists in all of us were ready to declare victory and move on, but […]

For much of 2021, there was plenty of angst expressed in the news with regard to the potential reduction of an individual’s federal unified gift and estate tax exemption amount. That exemption, $11.7 million per individual in 2021, was regularly threatened by several bills filed in Congress to reduce the exemption to a much lower […]

Increasingly popular methods to raise employee participation in defined contribution retirement plans are various “automatic” features. These include auto-enrollment, auto-escalation, and automatically diversified qualified default investment alternatives (QDIAs). Let’s explore the opportunities auto-enrollment, in particular, affords plan sponsors. There are three forms of auto-enrollment, or automatic contribution arrangements (ACAs). Basic Auto Enrollment (ACA) Participants are […]

I’m encouraged by a conversation topic that seems to be coming up more and more regarding philanthropy, trust-based philanthropy. It’s not a new topic, but one that has and will take time to become the norm. As with most changes, it is understood and adopted at varying rates and levels of engagement. For the sake […]