Academy Login

Two Philosophies for Retirement Income Planning Part Two: Safety-First School

This article is part of a series; click here to read Part 1. The safety-first school of thought was originally derived from academic models of how people allocate their resources over a lifetime to maximize lifetime satisfaction. Academics have studied these models since the 1920s to figure out how rational people make optimal decisions. In […]

Two Philosophies for Retirement Income Planning Part One: Probability-Based

Within the world of retirement income planning, the siloed nature of financial services between investments and insurance leads to two opposing philosophies about how to build a retirement plan. There is an old saying that if the only tool you have is a hammer, then everything starts to look like a nail. This tendency is […]

The Yield Curve is Inverted. Don’t Panic.

Wednesday was another “interesting” day in the markets. The S&P 500 Index was down almost 3% on the day – and follows on the heels of last Monday, where the market was also down nearly 3%. It’s been an eventful week and a half. Rather than dissect what’s caused these drops (and annoy one half […]

Ignore the Financial Media

WHAT IS OCCAM’S RAZOR? Occam’s Razor is a principle attributed to William Occam, a 14th century philosopher. He stressed that explanations must not be multiplied beyond what is necessary. Thus, Occam’s Razor is a term used to “shave off” or dismiss superfluous explanations for a given event. This concept is largely ignored within the investment […]

Can TIPS Help You?

Inflation is one of the most pernicious risks facing retirees. While there are a lot of ways to manage inflation risk, TIPS, or Treasury Inflation Protected Securities, are one of the few investment options that directly hedge against inflation risk. They aren’t perfect, and there are certainly some things to consider when you use them […]

Should You Try Timing to Avoid Bad Markets?

WHAT IS OCCAM’S RAZOR? Occam’s Razor is a principle attributed to William Occam, a 14th century philosopher. He stressed that explanations must not be multiplied beyond what is necessary. Thus, Occam’s Razor is a term used to “shave off” or dismiss superfluous explanations for a given event. This concept is largely ignored within the investment […]

How Does the Market in 2018 Stack Up Historically

There’s been a lot of ‘sturm und drang’ around what the markets have been doing lately. The financial media has been talking about how this is the sign of the inevitable end of the world.   Of course, we’ve had a few things lately that were also supposed to be signs the world crashing down on our ears. But, well, the world is […]

Is There Such a Thing as “Too Diversified?”

A client brought up the concept of being too diversified recently, and it gave me pause. My initial reaction was that there is no such thing . Diversification is a good thing. It allows you to minimize  risks inherent in individual investments (company gets sued, senior executive leaves, “next big thing” flops, etc.) and take […]

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