Retirement Watch Weekly
IRA, 401(k) Sponsors Can Offer Investment Advice
The Department of Labor issued new regulations last week that allow fiduciaries of 401(k) plans and IRAs to offer investment advice under some circumstances. The law prohibits such advice, but the DOL carved out some exceptions. Fiduciaries may offer advice, beginning Dec. 27, if their compensation doesn’t depend on the investment recommendations or they use […]
Why Many Personal Finance Decisions are Wrong
I regularly encourage Retirement Watch readers to fight their intuition when making personal finance decisions. The actions that people are most comfortable with and that are instinctive often are bad decisions. I know that from seeing the decisions people make and from conducting detailed, independent research before making a recommendation in the newsletter or web […]
New Estate Tax Rules
The 2010 tax deal created some new estate and gift tax rules, for at least two years through the end of 2012. One of the innovations is the portability of the estate tax credit. When a married person dies and his or her estate does not use his full $5 million estate tax exemption equivalent, […]
Reviewing the “Buckets Investing Strategy”
There are many ways to manage your money during retirement. Only a few of them work. One that I’ve recommended for some time and that seems to work for some of my readers is known as “the buckets strartegy.” You can read about it in some detail here, but here’s a summary. You divide your […]
Risk Management Wins Again
September, and the third quarter, mercifully are behind us. You’ve probably seen the data, so I won’t repeat them in detail. Stocks had their worst month and quarter since the financial crisis. Investors generally fared poorly. But our Retirement Watch recommended portfolios held up well. Thefour portfolios’ returns for September ranged from negative 0.45% to […]
Pitfalls in Retirement Calculators
One of the first steps for anyone trying to plan for retirement is to use a retirement calculator. Often one of the many free calculators available on the web is used, though there are several available that charge modest fees. Of course, some people have a financial planner prepare the calculations using a software calculator […]
Finding 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 […]
October 2011
October 31, 2011 12:15 p.m. Your Retirement Finance Week in Review Last week was a wild, euphoric one in the markets, and it capped off a great month for equity investors. Stocks had their best month since 1974. The major indexes rose over 12%. A collection of good news hit the market recently. Of course, […]
