Financial Support of Adult Children and Your Retirement
Much has been written about how the current generation of young people are transitioning to full adulthood. Some take a very negative view characterizing the transition as “slow” while others take a sympathetic view, reasoning that that the transition is more difficult to make than it was for prior generations given that the cost of […]
2023 – Q3 Quarterly Market Review
2023- Q3 Quarterly Market Review
Do Stocks Get Safer The Longer You Own Them?
There are a lot of cliches in retirement planning. And a lot of them are cliches for a good reason – they’re good advice. But not always, and more than a few of them are right for the wrong reasons.
One of those cliches is that with investing you need to focus on the long term to reduce the risks from investing. It is absolutely true that investing is a long-term activity, but is that second part true? Do stocks (and other types of investments) get safer the longer you hold onto them?
Which Retirement Are You Buying?
For many, the default approach seems to be to just “save what I can” for retirement. Individuals taking this approach usually save what’s “leftover” after making payments on their home, car and credit cards and covering their expenses of daily living. People generally recognize that they should save at least enough to capture their employer’s 401(k) match, if such a match exists, lest they “leave money on the table” each year.
How to Generate Inflation Adjusted Income in Retirement
Inflation is a fact of life. It’s also not so great for retirees. In fact, it’s one of the biggest risks that retirees face. By constantly eating away at the value of our savings and income, inflation will slowly reduce our purchasing power in retirement – if we don’t do anything about it.
You Can’t Time the Markets
The appeal of market timing is obvious. Who wouldn’t want to get in and out of the market at the best time every time? We’ve talked a lot about market timing in the past – timing risk premiums, trying to time the markets on a daily basis, and the importance of staying disciplined even when it seems obvious the markets are going to go down.
Why Can’t ‘Winning’ Active Managers Keep on Winning?
The numbers show that active management simply doesn’t work. There are several arguments against active fund managers, but one of the most damning is that winners don’t seem to repeat.
Are Republicans or Democrats Better for the Stock Market?
Every four years we talk about how this year’s Presidential election is the most important ever. Along the way, people make a whole host of sweeping statements about how picking their team will lead to all of the good things happening, but picking the other team will lead to all of the bad things happening […]
What Is Style Drift and Can It Be Avoided?
All too often, the funds you use end up sabotaging your asset allocation. What if the funds you select don’t do what you think they will? When you use actively managed funds, you have to watch out for something called “style drift” – when a fund’s style (what the fund actually owns) moves over time.
What Is The Retirement Spending Smile?
Our spending desires (and needs) change through time. Blanchett observes a “retirement spending smile” that varies slightly for retirees with different household spending levels.
