Retirement Watch Weekly
The Market Melt-Up
Stock indexes had an amazing start to 2018, so it shouldn’t be a surprise they closed January with consecutive down days. Before Jan. 30, the S&P 500 had 350 trading days without consecutive daily declines of 0.5% or more each. That’s a record by a wide margin. Fewer than a handful of such S&P 500 […]
Jeremy Grantham on Investing in Emerging Markets
The head of investment firm GMO recently said U.S. stocks could continue to rise for a while, but he’s more interested in emerging market stocks because of their lower valuations. He elaborates on his emerging market views in a recent interview. Longer-term, Grantham is fairly pessimistic. He expects low returns from U.S. stocks over the […]
Investing in Digital Cryptocurrencies is Still Not Safe
Digital currencies, also known as cryptocurrencies, try to present themselves as alternatives to government-issued currencies and gold. But they have several hurdles to clear, and one of them is that the currencies might not be safe. Here’s a story about how some computer hackers recently breached one of the digital currency exchanges and stole hundreds […]
The Complete Retirement Finance Guide to New Tax Law Changes in 2018
It’s the #1 burning question on my readers’ minds these days… What are the most important individual income tax changes I need to know in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017? (It was signed into law in late December) First off, most of the individual income tax changes are in effect from 2018 […]
Understanding ETF Investing
Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have become very popular, but it’s likely that many investors in ETFs don’t really understand what they own. This article highlights some characteristics of ETFs that likely elude many investors and explains how to evaluate ETFs and decide on their place in a portfolio. A straightforward example of this comes from the […]
Where the Real Action Is
Investors who are focused on U.S. stocks are missing a lot. It is true that U.S. stocks are off to one of the strongest starts ever to a calendar year. But savvy investors should be focusing elsewhere, specifically on the weakening U.S. dollar and the international stock markets. The dollar continues to be weak […]
More Treasury Bonds on the Way
The Department of the Treasury issues bonds all the time, but it’s going to start issuing more bonds than in the past. The plans won’t be announced until January 31. But this article says that most market experts expect the issuance of treasury bonds to increase a lot. That’s not good timing, because the Federal […]
The Best Retirement Strategies?
A researcher at Stanford University decided to find the “best answers” to key retirement questions. He sought help from the Society of Actuaries and compared the results of 292 strategies. He looked at two questions: when should Social Security benefits begin and at what rate should other money be spent? Readers of Retirement Watch won’t […]
