Retirement Watch Weekly
Is Early Retirement Over?
The choices of older workers will have a lot of influence on U.S. growth in coming years. The population is aging, and that usually reduces growth. But last year there was a break in a long trend. Older Americans didn’t retire at the same rate as in recent years. Maybe it’s a blip. But maybe […]
Harvard Endowment’s Investment Problems
The Harvard University Endowment recently overhauled its investment practices. It intends to reduce its staff and rely more on outside investment advisors. But a major problem that university has had apparently isn’t with its endowment investments but with the way its cash is invested. This article explains that over the objections of several of its […]
A Critic of Smart Beta Investing
Smart beta is a form of stock investing that is sort of passive investing or modified index investing. It first is based on academic research showing that investing based on certain factors increases long-term returns above capitalization-weighted indexes. The definition is fluid, but generally investing in low volatility stocks, undervalued stocks, and other strategies are […]
The Retirement Crisis and Course Corrections
Many surveys and reports indicate that a high percentage of Baby Boomers aren’t financially prepared for retirement. This leads to discussions of how bad things will be for these future retirees. This survey has a different result. It found, as the others have, that a low percentage of Baby Boomers have their retirement finances in […]
The Cut in Social Security Benefits
The full retirement age for Social Security rose to 66 a few years ago. Going forward, it is going to increase steadily for new retirees. This article explains how an increase in the full retirement age is a benefit reduction for most retirees. It also provides some basic background on Social Security, such as how […]
The Rise in Investor Confidence
Since the Nov. 8 election, a surge of optimism has been reported in many surveys. We’ve seen it in the household surveys as well as the small business and manufacturing business surveys. I experienced that surge of optimism firsthand at the MoneyShow Orlando last week. The crowd seemed larger than last year. (Show sponsors reported […]
Biggest Retirement Surprises
This is an unscientific survey from The Wall Street Journal. One of its columnists, Glenn Ruffenach, recently answered a reader’s question about the biggest surprises he found in retirement. He then asked readers to submit their biggest retirement surprises and received a lot of responses. You might need a subscription to read the article. Some […]
Investing amid the Uncertainty in Washington
Perhaps the most asked question by investors these days is: How do I adjust my portfolio for the new administration in Washington? We’re in a period of what I think is unusual uncertainty in the markets. Before considering any potential change in policies, uncertainty already was very high. As you know, we’re still dealing with […]
