3 Ways To Incorporate Bonds Into Your Retirement Strategy
Bonds can be incorporated directly into a retirement strategy in three broad ways:
1. An assets-only approach to build a total returns investment portfolio,
2. Matching the duration of bond funds to the duration of the retirement liability, and
3. Holding individual bonds to maturity to generate the desired cash flows to fund expenses on an ongoing basis throughout retirement.
Understanding Bond Returns
Bonds may not be as flashy as stocks, but they form the bedrock of your portfolio, so you should understand how they work.
Can You Rely On Dividends For Income?
There’s real value in knowing where your money will come from. Hence the appeal of income investing – building a portfolio focused on creating a long-term steady stream of income…But income investing presents a few problems.
Should You Keep International Stocks in Your Portfolio?
There will always be some asset class that does poorly. Over the last few years, one of those asset classes has been international stocks. They have underperformed US stocks each of the previous three years, and it’s looking like they’ll do it again this year. Given this underperformance, we’ve had some people ask why we […]
The Hidden High Costs of Index Funds
Here we cover the basics of index funds. Today, many investors use index funds because they provide an easy way to gain cheap, diversified exposure to specific areas of the market. The question is this: Is an index a precise representation of the sector of the market it describes?
How Do Presidential Elections Affect The Markets?
With the presidential election coming up, people are naturally curious about what the elections mean for the stock market – and, more importantly, for their investments (and everything those investments represent).
Are Oil Prices Lower Because of the Stock Market?
Is the volatility of oil a result of the volatility of the markets? Or vice versa? Or neither?
How Should an Overvalued Market Affect Your Investment Plan?
Markets don’t move capriciously. They move because something new has happened – new information has arisen. The tricky part is that we don’t know what new information will arise.
A Vanishing Value Premium?
Value stocks underperformed growth stocks by a material margin in the US last year. However, the magnitude and duration of the recent negative value premium are not unprecedented.
Total Return vs Income Investing: Same, but Different
Retirees can take 2 main approaches to spending from portfolios. 1) Focus on income and dividends produced in the portfolio, a.k.a. “income investing.” 2) Sell assets as appropriate to meet spending needs. For your portfolio, they’re basically the same thing. But, from your point of view, you should be aware of one difference: focusing on income investing can make your portfolio less diversified.
