Insights, Driftwood Wealth

I

Research

Papers, essays, and the exhibits behind them. What Driftwood believes, and what it can show.

The Research hubIndex Every exhibit in one place — the thesis, the model portfolio, the tax engines, and the essays that put them to work. The Interval ProblemEssay One index, one month, three irreconcilable stories, and what that implies about how often anyone should look. Every Portfolio Has Two ReturnsEssay The return a portfolio reports, and the return a household keeps. The World's Largest InvestorsEssay What the largest pools of capital do that individual households generally do not. Enough Is a NumberEssay Naming the figure that makes every subsequent decision easier. Driftwood PrinciplesReference The commitments the practice is built on, written down.

II

Commentary

Short observations on coordination, tax, and the moving parts — published when there is something to say rather than on a schedule.

The Shortest Line on the ChartNote Which of five Asian crashes is the worst one changes hands five times depending on where you stop measuring. All commentaryIndex Short notes on what changed, what it moved, and what a coordinated read would have caught earlier.

III

The Driftwood Review

The quarterly. Long-form synthesis on a fixed structure — the flagship publication, not a blog.

Volume I·Number I·Third Quarter 2026

A quarterly record of coordination decisions

Seven divisions in the same order every issue: Lead Essay, Research Notes, Tax & Planning, Market Structure, Practice Updates, Reading List, Appendix. The structure does not move, which is what makes a run of issues a record rather than a feed.

IV

Decision Memos

The reasoning of record on one decision already taken — dated, attributed, with the alternatives that were rejected and the condition that would reopen it. The Library answers what happens when; a memo shows what was thought, and when.

The order was the decisionMemo A family intended to sell a business and to leave the state. Both were settled; the sequence was not, and the sequence is what the outcome turned on. Reducing a concentrated positionMemo The same form applied to a portfolio decision: how fast to exit, at what tax cost, and into what — with the hedging route weighed and rejected. The Decision RegisterIndex Every structural decision on the day it was made, and the trigger that reopens it. Append-only: nothing deleted, only superseded.

V

Decision Tools

Interactive analyses you can run yourself, on your own numbers, without speaking to anyone. Each one answers a single decision end to end, and each one hands you the next. Set your household once and it follows you across all of them.

Start here

Coordination AssessmentTool How coordinated does your financial life need to be? Check what's true for your household and see the systems it moves, the matters that implies, and where the coordination is worth the most. No score, no grade.

Build wealth

State Tax AtlasTool Where should you build wealth? What a household actually keeps, state by state, once every layer of tax is applied rather than just the headline rate. After-Tax LabTool What does your portfolio actually keep? The same portfolio measured after tax rather than before — the number the household actually spends.

Protect wealth

Tax DiagnosticTool Where is your wealth leaking? Where a portfolio loses return to tax before it reaches the household, and what is recoverable by structure alone.

Unlock wealth

Concentrated Position LabTool How do you unwind a concentrated position? The routes out of a large single-stock holding: what each one costs in tax, time, and liquidity, and the order they run in.

VI

Decision Library

One decision, worked all the way through all seven systems. These are the moments where coordination is worth the most, because the systems move together whether or not anyone is watching them.

Sell a businessDecision The year before the sale decides most of what the sale is worth. Receive an inheritanceDecision The money arrives all at once; the decisions it triggers do not. Exercise stock optionsDecision Timing, tax character, and concentration are one decision, not three. Move statesDecision Changing the line on a return is the last step, not the first. Retire and start distributionsDecision Which account the spending comes from, and in which order. Death of a spouseDecision Filing status, titling, and beneficiaries all change at once. Buy a second homeDecision The purchase price is rarely the expensive part. Give to what mattersDecision What you give, from which account, and in which year.