As many of you know, we have long been believers in using investment funds from Dimensional Fund Advisors (DFA) and Vanguard. They have helped us build diversified portfolios in a low cost, tax efficient structure. DFA specifically has helped us tilt our portfolios towards stocks with higher expected returns, such as small stocks, value stocks and high profitability stocks. Now we would like to introduce our clients to a third company that our Investment Committee has authorized our advisors to use to implement our portfolios. Avantis Investors was created in 2019 by Eduardo Repetto, who was the former Chief Investment Officer and co-CEO of DFA. Eduardo built the firm by mostly hiring former DFA portfolio managers, relationship managers and traders. The start of Avantis Investors was financially backed by American Century Investments, which has been in the investment business since 1958 and manages over $247 billion in client assets.* This backing has...

As previously announced, we are moving our headquarters from Sweet Home Road in Amherst, to Transit Road in East Amherst on May 22, 2023!  We are excited for this next chapter in our 43-year history.  Our new offices will include upgraded conference rooms, security features, and technology.  We are excited to share this new space with everyone in the coming months and years.   Here is a link to our new location at the corner of Transit & Casey.   We will continue to operate our southtowns office in Hamburg and clients should see no disruption in service during our move. Our official new address is:  9310 Transit Road, Suite 300, East Amherst, NY  14051.   We can still be reached at 716-634-6113 or at invest@levelFA.com  ...

IRS RELEASE IR-2023-58, March 24, 2023 WASHINGTON — New York winter storm and snowstorm victims now have until May 15, 2023, to file various federal individual and business tax returns and make tax payments, the Internal Revenue Service announced today. The IRS is offering relief to any area designated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) as a result of storms that occurred between Dec. 23 and Dec. 28, 2022. This means that individuals and households that reside or have a business in Erie, Genesee, Niagara, St. Lawrence and Suffolk counties qualify for tax relief. Other areas added later to the disaster area will also qualify for the same relief. The current list of eligible localities is always available on the Tax Relief in Disaster Situations page. The tax relief postpones various tax filing and payment deadlines that occurred starting on Dec. 23, 2022. As a result, affected individuals and businesses will have until May 15, 2023, to...

PRESS RELEASE Level Financial Advisors has once again been voted one of the Best Places To Work in WNY by Buffalo Business First.  The annual competition, based in part on employee surveys, measures several different factors, including engagement, benefits and perks, paid time off, and career advancement opportunities. "We are proud for the continued recognition by our employees as being a great place to work!  Everyone on the team is committed to a culture of transparency, honesty and respect for each other. When you have that, it's hard not to succeed," noted Level's Chief Operating Officer and Partner, Michael Heburn. Level Financial, with offices in Amherst and Hamburg, has seen steady growth over the last five years, surpassing $500M in assets under management.  According to Heburn, the reasons behind it's growth are easy to see.  "It's starts with the team.  Everyone is focused on our mission and each other.  There are no egos...

Barron’s has named Dimensional Fund Advisors No. 1 in the outlet’s “Best Fund Families of 2022” list. The rankings look at the one-year records of how each firm’s actively managed funds performed vs. peers, based on data from Refinitiv Lipper. “Dimensional is known for its roots in academic research on factor investing, particularly involving value investing, and its tendency to favor smaller companies that are highly profitable,” the outlet noted. “As such, the firm sidestepped the meltdown in mega cap growth names and companies with few, if any, profits.” Barron’s also commented on how Dimensional keeps close tabs on equity premiums through daily price information. The firm’s managers watch for buying opportunities when growth stocks fall into value territory, and they also rely on factors such as momentum to help determine if it’s time to buy. Dimensional is No. 17 on Barron’s “5-year Ranking” of fund families and No. 7 on its 10-year list, the...

Last Friday markets were rattled as Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) shares plummeted and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) announced they had taken over the bank’s operations. They were the 16th largest bank in the nation at the time and will go down as the second largest bank failure in history. Over the weekend, Signature Bank was also taken over by NY bank regulators and will go down as the third largest bank failure in history. Fortunately, the FDIC, the Treasury and the Federal Reserve announced late Sunday night that they would make all depositors of both banks completely whole with full access to their money on Monday. This was an extraordinary move since normally bank accounts are only insured up to $250,000 per account owner. They also announced a new lending facility for banks to borrow against their temporarily depressed bond portfolios should they find themselves in a cash crunch like...

The failure of Silicon Valley Bank on Friday has made investors nervous.  Level's Michael Angelucci, CFP® joined WBEN this morning to discuss what happened and what it might mean for bank customers. Click Here to Listen...