Tennessee Tax Day Change
Following the disaster declaration issued by the State of Tennessee as a result of ice storms, individuals and households that reside or have a business in Cheatham, Chester, Clay, Davidson, Decatur, Dickson, Hardeman, Hardin, Henderson, Hickman, Lawrence, Lewis, Macon, Maury, McNairy, Perry, Robertson, Rutherford, Summer, Trousdale, Wayne, Williamson and Wilson counties qualify for tax relief. These taxpayers now have until May 22, 2026, to file various federal individual and business tax returns and make tax payments.
For each of you, we'd welcome a copy of your 2025 return when you have it available. We'd love the opportunity to review your situation for possible planning opportunities. Just let us know by emailing us at theparkergroup@rwbaird.com and we'll provide a link to our secure file-sharing portal.
Meet the Intern- Sam Pate
Hi, some of you may have already met me. My name is Sam Pate; I am currently a student at Lipscomb University, intending to graduate this May with a bachelor's degree in finance. I have experience in fields such as sales, guest services, and finance, and I hope to be a financial advisor someday. I am a very people-oriented person, so I would love to be able to work with and help people someday. When I have free time, my favorite hobbies are spending time with friends, watching sports, and golfing. I am very grateful for having the opportunity to intern with The Parker Group for a second semester. I have already learned so much from working with their amazing team. I look forward to how it will help me after graduation. - Sam
HSA- Eligible Expenses That Might Surprise You
With every job change and open enrollment period, many of you are shown a list of health insurance options. For about 30% of workers, an option on that list comes with the ability to contribute to a Health Savings Plan (HSA).1
In simplest terms, an HSA is a savings account with a trade-off with the IRS. For those who contribute, you receive a tax deduction for your contribution, tax-free growth, and tax-free withdrawals. The catch? Those withdrawals are only tax-free if the funds are used for “qualified expenses”. 2
For an HSA, a qualified expense is a healthcare expense that is approved by the IRS. Many qualified expenses are commonly known such as deductibles, medicines, therapies, and medical supplies. Some qualified expenses however, might come as a surprise to many. Here are a few of those.
- Activity Tracker
- Many fitness devices are available to help you monitor your overall health. Rings (Oura, RingConn, Ultrahuman, Circular), watches (Garmin, Fitbit), and other bands (Whoop, Withings) are some of the more common names. However, many of these devices aren’t automatically eligible. Some require a Letter of Medical Necessity from your physician before your HSA plan administrator will approve them. These letters can sometimes be acquired to help with the treatment of heart conditions or obesity.
- Sunscreen
- Summer is approaching, but the sun is already here. Sunscreen has somehow become a favorite of our worst friend, inflation. To help combat those high costs and protect your skin from cancer, HSA funds can be used to purchase sunscreen.
- Medical Conferences
- Many Americans (or their family members) live with illnesses that require significant knowledge of their treatment and management. With a Letter of Medical Necessity(LMN), you can use HSA funds to pay for the admission, transportation, and meals related to a medical conference that can provide knowledge and support related to the disease you are facing.
- Home Improvements
- Many Americans require changes to their home in order to live with their medical issues. With an LMN, you might be able to use HSA funds to cover the cost of a elevators, ramps, or expanded doorways.
- Contacts/Glasses
- Over 2/3 of Americans require some form of visual correction. HSA funds can be used to cover the cost of prescription eyeglasses, contacts, or eye exams. You can even use those funds for prescription sunglasses!
A good rule of thumb is to research any healthcare expense to see if it is HSA-eligible. The wide variety of qualified expenses makes the Health Savings Plan a phenomenal tool for planning for health expenses in the short and long terms.
Chart of the Quarter
Market Update
It is said that there has been consistent war in the Middle East for thousands of years. While fact-checking that statistic is above our pay grades, we do know that the US has been engaged in military action in the area for a large part of 30 years. On February 26, the President announced joint military action with Israel in the surprise airstrikes of key Iranian locations. While the political and military implications are nuanced and still being played out, we do want to assess the situation for the effects it might have on our clients’ portfolios.
The Flow of Trade
The area most affected happens to make up an area wealthy in some of Earth’s most prized commodities. Iran, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Iraq, and Kuwait are significant producers of oil, natural gas, fertilizers, and aluminum. A large percentage of those goods are then shipped out into the world through a narrow channel called the Straight of Hormuz (hor-mooz). It is estimated that 20% of the world’s oil and over 20% of the world’s liquefied natural gas passes through the Strait3.
At the moment, threats from IRCG are preventing massive shipping vessels from passing on to sea and to the open market. Most notably, this shipping stoppage has caused crude prices to rise 67% since the first attack4. Major fertilizer ingredients, key to the production of our food, are up over 25%5. While ships could risk passage, most shipping insurers have pulled coverage, leaving shippers unwilling to take the risk.
Impacts of Trade Disruption
While the US produces more oil than it uses, unfortunately, oil prices are set by global markets. Our focus now turns to the impacts of those higher prices. There are very few products whose prices aren’t impacted by oil. It’s heavily used in plastics production, plays an obvious role in shipping costs, and is an input on many manufacturing floors. Higher cost of production leads to higher prices, pushing inflation higher.
Inflation has come down significantly from its peak in 2022, back below 3%6, but the question at hand is: Does the consumer have the ability to handle prices being any higher?
Recent data is mixed. March unemployment was roughly the same as it was one year ago around 4.3%7. While this isn’t a scary number, the same report did reveal that February’s number of jobs dropped the most of any month since 2020. Consumer spending already slowed to a crawl in January before higher prices at the gas pump. Fourth GDP for 2025 was moderate but also revised downward in March.
What We Are Watching
First and foremost, we would welcome any sort of mutual agreement with Iran. Anything to get oil production back on track and shipping ramped back up would be a boost to markets. The President set expectations last week that the conflict wouldn’t be over in the next three weeks, but progress can still be made. On April 8, a 2-week ceasefire was agreed to, but nothing concrete has been signed.
On May 14th, the President is set to meet with Xi Jinping and the Chinese delegation. We’re looking for positive developments in progress towards a trade deal and a relaxation of tariffs. It’s possible part of the motivation behind the Iran conflict was to put pressure on China. China buys 80% of the oil sold by Iran’s producers8.
One of the biggest bright spots continues to be infrastructure spending spurred by the AI boom and the OBBB passed in 2025. We expect spending to normalize by the end of the year, but recent earnings have been a catalyst for stocks.
For all the fear and bluster of recent news, the S&P500 has only fallen 1.05% on the year as of April 8. Considering the very strong returns over the past 3 years, it’s not unreasonable that we might see a quieter year. But with midterms approaching, we still expect some political surprises to fall to the upside as incumbents look to maintain their position. As always, we’ll keep our eye on the market environment and any opportunities that arise. As always, stay the course, stick to the plan, and call us if you need anything!
Always Think Critically
An Article by Intern Sam Pate
Now more than ever, we live in a world overflowing with information. At first glance, this seems like an incredible advantage. Knowledge is just a click away, and we’ve never had more access to global events. However, along with this flood of information comes a very real and growing problem. The widespread circulation of falsified, exaggerated, or misleading statistics. From social media platforms to news outlets, it seems that almost everywhere you look, something is being presented as “fact”. When in reality it may only be a fragment of the truth. As the famous writer Mark Twain once said, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” Twain wasn’t attacking numbers themselves but rather the way people use numbers to manipulate others. This message grows more relevant with each passing day. Due to this, it is important to recognize several common forms of misleading information.
The first and most common issue that appears is the use of partial truths. These are often more difficult to detect than obvious falsehoods because they rely on information that is technically accurate but incomplete. Instead of presenting the full picture, someone may highlight only the details that support a preferred message while leaving out the rest. For example, a program may be described as having “increased graduation rates by 20%,” without noting that the rate rose from 5% to only 6%. Which makes the improvement sound far more significant than it is. Similarly, a headline might claim that a city has “the fastest‑growing population in the region,” while excluding its very small starting point. These statements are not lies in the traditional sense. Rather, they use fragments of truth stretched just enough to create a misleading impression. This happens in the world all too often. One example of this is Hain Celestial’s Channel-Stuffing incident. Hain Celestial, a packaged food company, was publicly reporting strong sales. While this was technically true, what they did not tell their investors was that the reason for these sales was due to a practice called channel-stuffing. This occurs by giving distributors large discounts, extended payment terms, and concessions. Things like this commonly occur, and that is why knowing what to look out for is such an important skill in today’s world.
Another very common thing is misleading charts or graphs. A graph can convey a sense of credibility and authority. Which is exactly why visuals are often used to mislead. Even when the underlying numbers are real, the way a chart is designed can distort its viewers’ perception. For instance, a bar graph might start its y‑axis at a high number instead of zero, making small differences appear dramatically large. A line chart might compress the x‑axis to exaggerate the appearance of rapid change. Some graphics exclude labels, use inconsistent scales, or replace clear bars with flashy 3D shapes that distort proportions. These tricks don’t change the data itself. They change how you see the data, which can be just as deceptive. A very famous example of this is from 2013. A news outlet released a chart showing that if the Bush tax rates expired, the top tax rate would rise. Which may be true, but the bar chart they showed started its y-axis at 34%. This resulted in the 4.6% increase. Looking at a quick glance, it was more than four times the size of the previous bar. This is a key example of how charts can be manipulated so that they seem to support whatever the user’s argument may be.
Overgeneralization is another very common type of misleading statistics. This occurs when broad claims are made from data that only applies to a small or very specific situation. This often stems from tiny sample sizes, narrow studies, or findings that haven’t been tested in different groups. For example, a study involving a few dozen volunteers might be used to make sweeping statements about an entire country. Or results from a particular demographic, such as residents of one city, might be presented as if they represent everyone. When conclusions are stretched far beyond what the data supports, the information may sound reliable, but it’s built on shaky ground. Looking into this, I found a statistic claiming that the crime rate under each party was split 96% to 8%. This was then used as a major pushing point in an argument that crime was way worse under the power of one party over the other. After diving deeper, we can see that for this statistic, only a small number of cities were used. On top of this, it was usually held by the political party that was being argued against. While at first this might seem accurate to some, this is a classic case of overgeneralization. They used this statistic from a few cities typically run by one party and assumed that this applies to the rest of the cities in the United States. Below is a picture of the graph that was posted.
The point of explaining all this isn’t to create fear or to suggest that the world is full of hidden lies. It’s simply to show how much the way information is presented can shape beliefs. Misleading claims don’t usually come from obvious falsehoods. More often, they come from tiny shifts in wording, bits of context left out, or numbers framed in a way that changes the story. Those small changes can make something feel true even when the full picture says otherwise. Building an awareness of these tactics isn’t about always being suspicious of everything. It’s about staying aware, just enough to notice when something doesn’t quite add up. A short pause to think about what might be missing or how the information could be framed differently can make a huge difference in how things are understood. With a little more attention and a bit of healthy curiosity, it becomes easier to see what’s actually being said and to move through the world with more clarity and certainty.
Sources and Disclosures
1) https://www.planadviser.com/hsa-growth-continues-plan-sponsors-calling-education/
2) https://www.irs.gov/publications/p969
3) https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=61042#:~:text=Exporting%20countries%20in%20the%20Middle,d%20during%20the%20last%20decade.
4) https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/crude-oil
5) https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/urea
6) https://www.bls.gov/cpi/
7) https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/unemployment-rate#:~:text=US%20Jobless%20Rate%20Falls%20to,to%208%25%20from%207.9%25.
8) https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/chinas-heavy-reliance-iranian-oil-imports-2026-03-21/
Fixed income is generally considered to be a more conservative investment than stocks, but bonds and other fixed income investments still carry a variety of risks such as interest rate risk, credit risk, inflation risk and liquidity risk. In a rising interest rate environment, the value of fixed income securities generally declines and conversely, in a falling interest rate environment, the value of fixed income securities generally increases. High-yield securities may be subject to heightened market, interest rate or credit risk and should not be purchased solely because of the stated yield. Municipal securities investments are not appropriate for all investors, especially those taxed at lower rates.
Investors should consider the investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses of each money market mutual fund carefully before investing. This and other information is found in the prospectus and summary prospectus. For a prospectus or summary prospectus, contact your financial advisor. Please read the prospectus or summary prospectus carefully before investing.
Rates are subject to change.
The calculation of the Standardized 30-Day Subsidized Yield is mandated by the SEC and is determined by dividing the net investment income per share earned during the period by the maximum public offering price of the Fund (“POP”) per share on the last day of the period. This number is then annualized.
Past performance is not indicative of future results and diversification does not ensure a profit or protect against loss. All investments carry some level of risk, including loss of principal. An investment cannot be made directly in an index. Robert W. Baird & Co. Incorporated.