Retirement Watch Weekly
The Late-Life Career Change
It’s never too late to try to switch careers, according to this post. Actually, she says 107 is too late. The keys are that you have to be sold on the career change and you can’t rely on submitting resumes to get you a job. You have to go about it the right way. Employers […]
The Latest in Life Expectancy
Many people underestimate their life expectancy, and that makes it harder for them to make their nest eggs last. It doesn’t help that the professional actuaries are conservative. They don’t revise their official life expectancy tables very often and are careful not to overestimate expectancies for some reason. The big news is that the American […]
Medicare Enrollment Too Complicated
Many people elect to take Social Security retirement benefits before age 65. For them, the transition to Medicare is seamless. They are automatically signed up for Medicare Part B. But that’s not the case for everyone else, according to this report from the Medicare Rights Center. Problems signing up for Medicare are more than an […]
Do Recent High Stock Returns Mean Low Returns are Coming?
There’s nothing quite like looking at the data. I regularly run into people who say they’re betting that stocks are going to crumble because they’ve done so well since 2009. I ask for the data backing the statement, and they don’t any much. Here’s a thorough article addressing the question. The answers aren’t simple or […]
Avoiding Outliving Your Assets
Here’s a review of the recent Treasury Department decision to allow longevity annuities to be purchased in some retirement plans. The article discusses the importance of using some annuities in retirement plans to reduce or eliminate the risk of outliving your money. Not much new here, but it’s a good review of the basic arguments […]
Living to 120
There isn’t a special vitamin or other single things you can do to extend longevity. But a Longevity Science Panel in the U.K., a group of scientists and other experts, has been reviewing the studies and literature. They’ve reached a conclusion about the steps people need to take to increase their longevity. They also believe […]
Update on Long-Term Care Insurance
Things have calmed down the last couple of years in long-term care insurance. Back then, insurers were busy substantially increasing premiums on existing policies, and many exited the market. The latest news is that the largest LTC insurer announced a large charge against earnings because it still has problems with LTCI despite premium increases. This […]
Beware of Finance Studies on How to Beat the Stock Market
You probably need a subscription to Barron’s to read this. It’s a good one. It’s a summary of an academic study of academic studies on ways to beat the markets. The results are disturbing. The authors concluded that about half the studies simply are false. I’ve seen similar (and worse) assessments of the published literature […]
