Retirement Watch Weekly
Higher Risk Not Equal to Higher Returns
We’ve covered this in the past, but there’s new research. A rule of thumb is that you have to take more risk to earn higher returns. It appears now that in stocks at least that’s not the case. In fact, the riskiest stocks, as measured by volatility, earn lower returns than average. One explanation could […]
Dissecting The Shiller P-E Conundrum
Longtime readers of Retirement Watch are familiar with Hussman Strategic Growth and its fall from grace. The fund had a great record prior to the 2008 financial crisis. Since the recovery began in 2009, the fund’s continued to hedge its portfolio, selling short stock index futures as stock indexes rose to record levels. The fund’s […]
More on the Global Asset Portfolio
Last Friday I linked to an article from Cullen Roche arguing that investors shouldn’t be focused on the S&P 500 as a benchmark. Instead, they should focus on the global financial portfolio of assets. Now here’s someone else arguing much in the same vein. The Philosophical Economics blog takes a look at all the media […]
Beating the Stock Market
Here’s an interesting perspective on investing success from Cullen Roche of Pragmatic Capitalism. Roche makes a couple of unique points. One is that for a true passive investor, you shouldn’t be focused on “the market” represented by stock market indexes. You should be focused on all the financial assets out there. He argues that a […]
Rethinking Aging
Things improve and life gets better as we age, according to new research cited in The Wall Street Journal. (Subscription might be required.) In addition to higher life satisfaction, many older people are able to use knowledge and certain types of intelligence to offset the age-related cognitive decline. The stereotypical older person who is grumpy, […]
A Case for Retiring Later
People are living longer and saving less, so the longtime retirement age of 65 isn’t practical, according to Alicia Munnell of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. She has a new book coming out on the subject and recently did an interview with Morningstar.com to discuss the book. Morningstar: So, is the problem […]
Not-So-Grumpy Old Men
The latest research on happiness concludes that for most people happiness is highest earliest and late in life but declines in the middle. The burdens of being middle-aged weigh on most people. The study relied on people’s self-reporting of their happiness. It also didn’t try to measure people’s happiness relative to each other and find […]
Where to Age Well
I always caution about studies that rank areas of the country for retirement or other purposes, but especially for retirement. Yet, they always are good to read and review if you’re considering moving during retirement. (Keep in mind that most people don’t move in retirement.) The Milken Institute has perhaps the most interesting survey of […]
