Featured Articles

I have taken the Retirement Income Style Awareness™ Profile. Is it helpful to use this with a financial professional?

Here, we address whether or not you feel it would be helpful to share your personal RISA™ results with a financial professional.

I’ve taken the Retirement Income Style Awareness™ Profile. What’s next?

We were able to categorize next steps after the RISA™ into five groups.

Retirement Income Style Awareness Profile (RISA™) and Its Accuracy

We asked RISA™ participants if they felt the results were accurate; did the RISA™ “capture the essence of their style?”

Retirement Income Style Awareness Profile (RISA™) and Your First Reactions

In the spirit of transparency, we are continuing to refine a scale to determine your retirement income style. I thought it would be a good idea to share with all of you some of the feedback we have received from the RISA™’s release in early 2020.

Introduction

Hi, I’m Alex and welcome to our site. I know you will find it valuable, but first - I’m sure you want to know, who am I to be running this?

That’s a great question so here goes…. I graduated from George Washington University with a doctorate in Psychology. I was a successful student, as I received a research grant as a fellow for the National Institutes of Health. It is here where I learned the foundation of what a scientist-practitioner was all about.

Upon graduating though, my research interests evolved to investments, and I sought a formal career in the financial industry. Staying true to my scientist-practitioner mindset, I joined McLean Asset Management and was able to publish a number of articles, and one went on to win a fancy award too! I also, founded a financial planning software company with Wade to better serve the industry and our underlying clients.

And now, Wade and I have decided to focus our efforts on the RISA™. We are extremely excited about its potential to impact your lives for the better.

What else?

I’m as of this writing 47 years-old. I live with my wife, Kristi. We have three boys, a wild bunny running around in our backyard, and a dog named Mandy.

Now here is the “just the facts version” for those of you that want to get right to it.

Alex Murguia, Ph.D. is the CEO of Retirement Researcher and Managing Director of McLean Asset Management. He has written in numerous industry journals such as the Journal of Financial Planning and has been recognized nationally for his work. He has also been interviewed and quoted for his thoughts about retirement, financial technology and wealth management in various industry and widely distributed publications such as the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal and is a frequent speaker at various industry conference. He has also founded a financial planning software used across the industry.

Whether Gold Prices Are Up or Down, You Should Stay Away

By Alex Murguia, PhD

Along with China and the potential implications of rising interest rates, many stories have come out this week heralding the fall of gold and the new world we now live in as a result. It seems only a few years ago, we were…

For Couples, Not Talking About Money Can Be Costly

By Alex Murguia, PhD

I was stunned to read the first paragraph of this article. “Do you know how much money your spouse makes? …According to a biannual retirement survey of over 1,000 couples by Fidelity Investments, it’s a question 43% of couples can’t answer—up from 27%…

Bucket of Cold Water Dumped on this Investing Strategy

By Alex Murguia, PhD

Poor Greece. Not even the Greek alphabet has been given safe quarter these past weeks. Perhaps it is the ever increasing popularity of ETF strategies and the continuing underwhelming performance of active managers, but one thing is clear if you are trying…

Can Indexing Become Too Big?

By Alex Murguia, PhD

This is an issue that comes up as a last ditch effort to attempt to sway the active/passive argument in the active direction. It’s as if after a wave of articles that show the shortcomings of trying to outguess the markets an…