Retirement Watch Weekly
Coping with Stock Market Losses
This post is from a venture capital investor, but it has good points for most investors. The piece starts with the author being told early in his career that if he didn’t have any losses in his portfolio he wasn’t taking enough risk. Since then, he’s incurred many losses, but he’s still doing well on […]
Data Points to Improved Labor Market
It won’t be published officially for a few more weeks, but the revised edition of my book, “The New Rules of Retirement,” is rising in popularity on Amazon.com thanks to your interest and pre-publication orders. The changes from the first edition are significant. I had to almost completely re-write the book. It covers all the […]
The Bankrupt U.S. Government Pension System
There have been many reports of the perilous financial state of state and local pension funds and of Social Security. Overlooked in all the analyses is the terrible condition of the retirement system the U.S. governments offers for its own employees. The system was reformed somewhat in the 1980s to a hybrid system. Long-time employees […]
Avoiding Expensive IRA Mistakes
IRA rules and strategies can be more complicated once the early contribution and accumulation years are behind us. There are various tricks and traps in the IRA rules, and there are strategies for maximizing IRA values that aren’t intuitive. […]
Annuities – Safe, Guaranteed Income
Protect my principal, and guarantee my income. Those are the goals of many investors today, especially those in or nearing their post-career years. Now that the equity markets no longer are rising steadily upward, investors aren’t looking for ways to match or beat the indexes. They’re looking to protect the nest eggs they’ve worked hard […]
Nuts & Bolts of Estate Planning – The Basics
Most discussions of estate planning, including in this newsletter, focus on discrete topics and strategies. Once in a while, especially early in the year, it is good idea to step back and look at the broader picture. There are concepts and strategies common to every estate plan and estate owner. Use these concepts and strategies […]
Separating the Myths and Facts of Long-Term Care
Long-term care is a great American paradox. On the one hand, most people don’t want to talk about it. A recent survey found that 25% of adults would rather go to the dentist than discuss LTC. Fewer than 30% of adults have had a conversation about long-term care planning. Yet, paying for LTC and the […]
Closing the Door to Your Greatest Fraud Risk
The recent headlines about the theft of tens of millions of personal information from health insurer Anthem shouldn’t have been a surprise, and it is the type of action you should expect to hear about regularly. Your greatest risk of being scammed or having your identity stolen might be one you don’t suspect. The big […]
