What Makes the Markets Move?
Financial markets are constantly on the move, and those moves can have serious implications for what your retirement will look like. Still, most people don’t really have any clue as to why the markets move the way they do.
Are Municipal Bonds Right for You?
We all want to minimize the amount of taxes that we owe. Municipal bonds, or munis, often seem like a great solution since they’re billed as being tax free (which we’ll talk about in a bit), but everyone else thinks so, too, which means that their prices reflect their tax advantages. This doesn’t disqualify munis as a great tool for retirement investors, but you do need to be careful about how you use them.
What Risks Are Worth Taking
Risk drives everything about your investments, but all risk is not created equal. For most investors (and most of the financial industry) dealing with risk is a lot like making sausage. People want the end result, the investment returns, but they don’t want to deal with the process and the uncertainty that risk implies. They […]
Why You Make Profit From Investing
Why have markets been good to investors over the long-term? Why should you get those returns for simply investing your money? The reason: the market is paying you to take on risk.
Preparing for Retirement When You’re Starting Late
Everyone knows that you’re supposed to start saving for retirement early, but that doesn’t always happen. In fact, if you look at the numbers, it’s actually pretty rare. Most people are woefully unprepared for retirement, but you can change that.
Why Your Savings Rate is the Keystone of Retirement Planning
How much you save for retirement goes a long way to determining how much you can spend in retirement. There are many factors to your success in retirement, but they all pale in comparison to your savings rate. Put simply, this is the most important number in financial planning.
Should You Own Bonds in a Rising Rate Environment?
Most people don’t think too much about their bonds. They really are the boring foundation for your portfolio. However, occasionally they spring to the surface, and this is one of those times. Lately, a number of people have been wondering why they should be investing in bonds, since we’re obviously in a period of rising […]
How Are You Different From The Average Investor?
Deciding on your asset allocation is one of the most important investing decisions that you will make. The asset classes that you decide to include in your portfolio will determine what you can get out of your portfolio, and your investment experience. As you would expect, there are a lot of people who want to give you a lot of advice about what the “right” allocation is. But almost none of it is good advice. Most people are focused on tactics, or what they think will work in the moment – not what will work in the long run.
What are Market Valuations? (Part 2)
Taking distributions from an investment portfolio amplifies the impacts of portfolio volatility, making retirement income planning particularly tricky as distributions tend to be the primary income source for retirees. We can use Monte Carlo simulations to show the increase of money-weighted investment returns in retirement, which has important implications about the choice for a fixed portfolio return assumption.
What are Market Valuations? (Part 1)
Taking distributions from an investment portfolio amplifies the impacts of portfolio volatility, making retirement income planning particularly tricky as distributions tend to be the primary income source for retirees. We can use Monte Carlo simulations to show the increase of money-weighted investment returns in retirement, which has important implications about the choice for a fixed portfolio return assumption.
