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Peter Babilla brings 40 years of experience in investment management and fiduciary* financial consulting to Vertex Planning Partners, LLC.
Pete graduated from Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana with a Bachelor’s of Science in Finance.
He began his career in 1983 with a focus on institutional fixed-income portfolio management, primarily working with community banks. After a decade serving institutional clients, Pete shifted his focus to working with individuals, families and business owners, providing guidance and education in all areas of Wealth Management. Among his areas of focus are accumulation and retirement planning, investment management, risk management, and estate and wealth transfer.
Pete’s planning philosophy allows him to create a personalized program for clients, based on their own unique goals and circumstances. The extensive investment and planning platform offered by Vertex enables him to create a highly customized program, tailored to each individual client.
Pete and his wife Suzanne have two children, and have resided in Wheaton, Illinois for the past 30 years. He enjoys golf, reading, and traveling with his family. Pete gives back as a past Board Member of the Epilepsy Foundation of Greater Chicago, where his focus is on improving the lives of those living with epilepsy.
Pete works as fiduciary for his clients and holds the CERTIFIED FIANANCIAL PLANNER™ (CFP®) designation and the Chartered Retirement Plan Specialist (CRPS®) designation.
Justin D’Agostino joined Vertex Partners in 2019 and serves a select group of business owners and affluent families. He specializes in investments, financial planning, and succession planning. His interest and knowledge in providing comprehensive financial planning and wealth management services to clients was sparked when he worked at a boutique tax and wealth management firm in Michigan. He has nine years of experience in the financial services industry, and his mission is to provide every client with targeted, comprehensive financial advice and to help them implement customized strategies designed to move them closer to accomplishing their unique goals.
Justin attended Hillsdale College where he earned his BA in Accounting and Financial Management and was a member and captain of the football team. Justin is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ Professional, and holds the Tax Planning Certified Professional®, Chartered Financial Consultant® and Chartered Retirement Planning Counselor™ designations.
Justin and his wife, Alexandra, reside in Chicago, Illinois. He is an avid sports fan and enjoys golfing, playing soccer and spending summer weekends with his family.
Scott Sandee brings over 20 years of experience to his role as Managing Partner of Vertex Planning Partners, leading the firm’s efforts to assist middle-market business owners and eight and nine-figure families in comprehensive planning. We enable clients to achieve their financial goals by tailoring solutions to their unique aspirations and situations. Leveraging his experience in sophisticated investment techniques and financial strategies with privately held family businesses, supported by extensive post-graduate education focused on exit planning, wealth management, estate planning, investment analysis, insurance planning, risk management, and tax optimization, he:
Scott guides successful entrepreneurs and wealthy families through the transfer of ownership of their privately held companies.
Designations: Certified Financial Planner® Certified Private Wealth Advisor® Certified Investment Management Analyst® Certified Exit Planning Advisor Certified Merger & Acquisition Advisor
Julie Hupp, CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professional, has worked in the accounting and corporate finance field since 1987. She began her career as a CPA with Deloitte & Touche, specializing in the financial needs of small businesses. Then spent the next 13 years in corporate financial planning and business development at Baxter and TAP Pharmaceuticals. Recognizing her passion for personal financial planning, Julie started her business in 2006 where she focuses on comprehensive financial planning strategies and implementation.
Julie graduated from University of Illinois with a BS in Accountancy. She received her Master’s in Management with a concentration in Finance from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management in 1994.
Outside the office, Julie is the co-founder of the 12 Oaks Foundation, which has merged with Cal’s Angels, and is a former Board member. Julie enjoys cooking, reading, running, triathlons and doing almost anything outdoors. A great weekend is spending time with her husband and two adult kids boating at their lake house in Wisconsin.
Steven P. Franzen, CPA, PFS, CGMA is a public accountant and consultant with more than 23 years of experience helping individuals and businesses reduce their tax liability. He began his career under the guidance of Patrick M. De Sio, CPA, CGMA and in 1996 became Mr. De Sio’s partner in De Sio, Franzen & Associates, Ltd. Steve’s expertise include entity design, complex tax strategies and multigenerational wealth transfer. As Managing Partner, Steve conducts his practice under the philosophy that the client’s investment in their CPA should yield a return on that investment – most of the time that return is realized when working with clients on planning for their future. In an effort to increase the planning capabilities of the firm, Steve formed Vertex Accounting Partners, LLC to ensure their guiding philosophy will continue well into the future.
Steve is a certified public accountant and has earned the professional designations of Personal Financial Specialist and Chartered Global Management Accountant. He is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the Illinois CPA Society. Steve earned a B.S. degree in accounting from Millikin University. He and his wife Kristie live in Sugar Grove, IL with their three children.
Greg Benner advises high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth business owners, individuals and families on advanced tax, risk management, retirement, estate planning, and wealth strategies.
As a co-founder of Vertex Planning Partners, he works closely with clients, families, and their professional advisors—CPAs, attorneys, and business stakeholders—to implement thoughtful, durable planning strategies. His approach prioritizes clarity, coordination, and disciplined execution.
For twenty-four years, Greg’s work has focused on designing and coordinating multi-factor, integrated plans involving:
Drawing from his own experience as a founder, business and real estate investor, and multi-generational family business member, he understands some of the challenges that can arise for business owners as they consider an exit. Multi-disciplinary, intentional planning with stakeholder communication creates structure, mitigates risk, addresses tax implications, and preempts issues that can arise.
Greg holds a Master of Science in Taxation, a graduate program that deepened his technical training in federal income taxation, partnership and corporate taxation, estate and gift tax, and tax procedure. This academic work enhances his ability to help families and business owners navigate complex tax environments and align their financial and estate-planning objectives across generations.
Designations:
Licenses:
Greg is deeply committed to lifelong learning and continuous professional development in the areas of tax, estate planning, and private-wealth strategy.
Michael D. Bellis, CFP®, CLU® began his career as a financial planning professional in 1994. His practice is centered on holistic financial planning, astute risk management strategies and empirical, research-driven portfolio construction. He began his career in partnership with his father under the name Bellis & Associates. Together, their practice and reputation for excellence dates back more than 40 years and includes multiple generations of the same families. After his father’s retirement several years ago, Mike continued to build a client-centric, consultative practice before forming Vertex.
Mike holds the CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ certification and is also a Chartered Life Underwriter. He has been an active member of both the Society of Financial Services Professionals and the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors. He earned a B.S. in Business & Marketing from Illinois State University. Mike is a lifelong resident of Naperville, Illinois. He and his wife Tanja have three children.
Making Sense of Recent Market Volatility
The stock market has experienced historically strong returns over the past quarter, so the latest episode of volatility may raise questions among investors. The Nasdaq experienced its largest single-day fall in a year, with the index declining 4.2% on Friday, June 5.
Counterintuitively, the drop followed a strong jobs report, which is good news for the broader economy, because it raises the possibility of a Federal Reserve rate hike by the end of the year.1 At the same time, a brief re-escalation of the conflict in the Middle East added to investor concerns that have been in the background. While it’s normal for the stock market to experience swings, this recent volatility has some clear causes that history can help us understand.
Just as architects design buildings to withstand not just sunny days but all types of conditions, investors should remember that periods of strong returns are not a reason to forget about risk management and portfolio balance. While it’s important to appreciate when the market performs well, it’s during the good times that investors are best positioned to prepare their portfolios for whatever lies ahead.
After all, even with the latest one-day pullback, major market indices have still experienced healthy gains this year. History also suggests that investors do not need to overreact to the prospect of Fed rate hikes. There can certainly be short-term volatility as markets anticipate tighter financial conditions, but the stock market has performed well across many different Fed rate hike cycles. Understanding why markets react to interest rates, and keeping these moves in perspective, can help investors stay focused on their long-term goals.
The market has experienced renewed volatility
Perhaps most interesting is the fact that the bond market has faced a more challenging environment as interest rates have remained high. Rates have risen along the entire yield curve this year, with the 10-year Treasury yield, for instance, around 4.5%.2 The bond market is sometimes described as the “smart money,” meaning that bond investors tend to more closely analyze the underlying trends in inflation, growth, and Fed policy compared to the stock market.
Whether this is the case or not, the bond market has been signaling that interest rates may stay higher than some had hoped, even as the stock market has rallied. It’s not too surprising, then, that the stock market recently reacted to these same developments. This is particularly true for technology and AI-related stocks, which are highly sensitive to interest rates.
Technology stocks can be sensitive to interest rates
Why are technology stocks sensitive to interest rates? Investors buy these stocks largely because they expect high growth that extends far into the future, in contrast to more established businesses with steady cash flows. Since interest rates affect how future profits are valued today, even small shifts, especially ones that change direction, can lead to large swings. Thus, interest rates are like a long lever, where even small moves at one end can make a large difference at the other.
This dynamic is important because technology-related stocks now constitute a larger proportion of the overall stock market. The Magnificent 7, for instance, now makes up about one-third of the S&P 500.4 Thus, many investors may hold a larger proportion of these companies than in the past. The chart above shows that even with the latest pullback, these sectors have performed well this year. Still, investors may experience periods of volatility they may not have in the past, which is why monitoring asset allocations and maintaining portfolio balance matters just as much when markets are rising as when they are falling.
Markets have performed well across Fed rate hike cycles
There is also some uncertainty around how Kevin Warsh, as the new Fed chair, will respond to inflation. In the past, he has been viewed as an inflation hawk, meaning he would lean toward raising rates to help stabilize prices for consumers and businesses. This would put him at odds with the White House’s desire for rate cuts. He has also publicly stated that the Fed ought to reduce its balance sheet, which in effect tightens financial conditions.
However, all of this remains speculation until the Fed actually makes its decisions based on the actual economic environment. It’s also not yet certain whether this would be the beginning of a rate hike cycle, or simply a short period of tighter rates.
That said, even if current market expectations do prove to be correct, the Fed is not anticipated to raise rates until the end of the year, and only by 25 basis points, as seen in the chart above. This is a modest move by historical standards, especially compared to the rate hike cycle from 2022 to 2023, when the Fed raised rates from the zero-lower-bound to 5.25% over 11 hikes.
More importantly, the market has performed well across many different rate environments, including periods when rates are rising. This is especially true when the Fed is tightening conditions because the economy is strong, since healthy growth tends to support corporate earnings. In other words, it’s not unusual in rising markets for the Fed to also be raising rates.
The bottom line?
Recent volatility reflects the possibility of Fed rate hikes and renewed geopolitical tensions, but neither is a reason to fundamentally change long-term plans. While parts of the stock market may experience short-term volatility, history shows that markets can perform well across many different rate cycles.
References
Index Descriptions
S&P 500
The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index is a capitalization-weighted index of 500 stocks designed to measure performance of the broad domestic economy through changes in the aggregate market value of 500 stocks representing all major industries.
Dow Jones
The Dow Jones Industrial Average is comprised of 30 stocks that are major factors in their industries and widely held by individuals and institutional investors.
NASDAQ
The NASDAQ Composite Index measures all NASDAQ domestic and non-U.S. based common stocks listed on The NASDAQ Stock Market. The market value, the last sale price multiplied by total shares outstanding, is calculated throughout the trading day, and is related to the total value of the Index.
Content in this material is for general information only and not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. All performance referenced is historical and is no guarantee of future results. All indices are unmanaged and may not be invested in directly.
All investing involves risk, including loss of principal. No strategy assures success or protects against loss. The economic forecasts set forth in this material may not develop as predicted, and there can be no guarantee that strategies promoted will be successful.
Copyright (c) 2026 Clearnomics, Inc. All rights reserved. The information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, but is not necessarily complete and its accuracy cannot be guaranteed. No representation or warranty, express or implied, is made as to the fairness, accuracy, completeness, or correctness of the information and opinions contained herein. The views and the other information provided are subject to change without notice. All reports posted on or via www.clearnomics.com or any affiliated websites, applications, or services are issued without regard to the specific investment objectives, financial situation, or particular needs of any specific recipient and are not to be construed as a solicitation or an offer to buy or sell any securities or related financial instruments. Past performance is not necessarily a guide to future results. Company fundamentals and earnings may be mentioned occasionally, but should not be construed as a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold the company’s stock. Predictions, forecasts, and estimates for any and all markets should not be construed as recommendations to buy, sell, or hold any security–including mutual funds, futures contracts, and exchange traded funds, or any similar instruments. The text, images, and other materials contained or displayed in this report are proprietary to Clearnomics, Inc. and constitute valuable intellectual property. All unauthorized reproduction or other use of material from Clearnomics, Inc. shall be deemed willful infringement(s) of this copyright and other proprietary and intellectual property rights, including but not limited to, rights of privacy. Clearnomics, Inc. expressly reserves all rights in connection with its intellectual property, including without limitation the right to block the transfer of its products and services and/or to track usage thereof, through electronic tracking technology, and all other lawful means, now known or hereafter devised. Clearnomics, Inc. reserves the right, without further notice, to pursue to the fullest extent allowed by the law any and all criminal and civil remedies for the violation of its rights.
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