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Make timely adjustments to your 529 plan
Investing column
LauraEvans

If you have school-age children, you might greet the arrival of June with some relief — for at least a few months, you don’t have to worry about “encouraging” kids to do their homework, study for tests, give you their permission slips for field trips and so on.
But one day, these obligations will give way to a substantially bigger one — paying for college. If you’ve already begun preparing for that day with a tax-advantaged college-savings vehicle, such as a 529 plan, you’re taking a positive step, because higher education is expensive. But it’s not enough to just set up your 529 plan; you may also need to adjust it over time.
Up until this year, you were only allowed to change the investments in your
529 plan once a year. This caused concern among some investors, who wanted the freedom to change their
529 investments in response to movements in the financial markets. But late in 2014, President Barack Obama signed into law the Achieving a Better Life Experience (ABLE) act, the key purpose of which was to create tax-free accounts allowing people to save for disability-related expenses. And one provision of the ABLE act also allows 529-plan investors to change their investments twice a year, rather than once.
If you invest in a 529 plan, you might welcome this additional freedom to adjust your investments. Still, keep in mind that a 529 plan is a long-term vehicle that’s not really designed to accommodate frequent “tweaking.” And, as is true with any investment account, such as your IRA and 401(k), you don’t want to over-react to short-term market fluctuations by making radical changes to your investment mix.
Nonetheless, you will almost certainly want to adjust your 529 plan investments somewhat — at least in the long term. If you’ve opened a 529 plan when your children are young, you have many years until you need to tap into the money — which means your account has more time for growth potential and more time to “smooth out” those periods of market volatility, which will certainly occur. Consequently, you may be able to afford to invest somewhat more aggressively when your children are young.
However, as your kids near college, you will probably want to revisit the level of risk in your 529 plan. So, during the last couple of years before you need to access your plan, you may want to consider moving some of your investment dollars to more conservative allocations. By doing so, you’ll cut back on your growth potential, but you’ll also lessen the risk of taking a big hit if you have to start taking withdrawals during a “down” market.
Some 529 plans offer an option that automatically adjusts your investment mix toward a more conservative approach as your children near college age. But you may want to make your own adjustments, possibly with the help of a financial professional, to ensure that your 529 plan accurately reflects your own preferences and risk tolerance.
As you save for your children’s college education, you may find a 529 plan to be a great help. Just be sure to keep a close watch on your plan’s investments as the years go by.

This article was written by Edward Jones and provided by Laura Evans, your local Edward Jones financial adviser.

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Record April boosts Savannah's container trade at port
GardenCityTerminal
The Port of Savannah moved 356,700 20-foot equivalent container units in April, an increase of 7.1 percent. - photo by Provided

The Georgia Ports Authority's busiest April ever pushed its fiscal year-to-date totals to more than 3.4 million 20-foot equivalent container units (TEUs), an increase of 8.8 percent, or 280,000 TEUs, compared to the first 10 months of fiscal 2017.

"We're on track to move more than 300,000 TEUs in every month of the fiscal year, which will be a first for the authority," said GPA Executive Director Griff Lynch. "We're also anticipating this to be the first fiscal year for the Port of Savannah to handle more than 4 million TEUs."

April volumes reached 356,700 20-foot equivalent container units, up 7.1 percent or 23,700 units. As the fastest growing containerport in the nation, the Port of Savannah has achieved a compound annual growth rate of more than 5 percent a year over the past decade.

"As reported in the recent economic impact study by UGA's Terry College of Business, trade through Georgia's deepwater ports translates into jobs, higher incomes and greater productivity," said GPA Board Chairman Jimmy Allgood. "In every region of Georgia, employers rely on the ports of Savannah and Brunswick to help them become more competitive on the global stage."

To strengthen the Port of Savannah's ability to support the state's future economic growth, the GPA Board approved $66 million in terminal upgrades, including $24 million for the purchase of 10 additional rubber-tired gantry cranes.  

"The authority is committed to building additional capacity ahead of demand to ensure the Port of Savannah remains a trusted link in the supply chain serving Georgia and the Southeast," Lynch said.

The crane purchase will bring the fleet at Garden City Terminal to 156 RTGs. The new cranes will support three new container rows, which the board approved in March. The additional container rows will increase annual capacity at the Port of Savannah by 150,000 TEUs.

The RTGs will work over stacks that are five containers high and six deep, with a truck lane running alongside the stacks. Capable of running on electricity, the cranes will have a lift capacity of 50 metric tons.

The cranes will arrive in two batches of five in the first and second quarters of calendar year 2019.

 Also at Monday's meeting, the GPA Board elected its officers, with Jimmy Allgood as chairman, Will McKnight taking the position of vice chairman and Joel Wooten elected as the next secretary/treasurer.

For more information, visit gaports.com, or contact GPA Senior Director of Corporate Communications Robert Morris at (912) 964-3855 or rmorris@gaports.com.

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