Retirement Watch Weekly
Getting Your IRA Beneficiary Right
Be sure to review the beneficiary designations of your accounts and keep them updated. If you do nothing else about estate planning, do that. Your IRAs and other accounts go to the beneficiary named in the account forms and the plan documents. Your will, living trust, and other documents don’t cover these accounts. These often […]
Shooting Down Another Retirement Myth
One of the common beliefs about retirement is that after stopping work people migrate to warm weather states such as Florida and Arizona. A lot of people do that, but they’re in the minority. The bulk of retirees stay in the same states and even in the same counties where they lived during their careers. […]
Portfolio Diversification Harder to Accomplish
A buy and hold investor definitely needs investments that aren’t correlated with each other. Even investors who do some trading in their accounts want some diversification and balance. In recent years this has become harder to achieve. In the financial crisis, the correlation of all investments, except short-term treasury bonds, went to 1.0 or very […]
Don’t Own Stocks for the Long Run
Stocks for the Long Run is a best-seller by Jeremy Siegel and is the basis for the stock-centered portfolios that dominate in the U.S., even among retired investors. Siegel’s argument is that over the long-term stocks earn substantially higher returns than the alternatives. Stocks do have higher volatility. But because of the higher returns, investors […]
Where Not to Retire
Few people realize that taxes are one of the largest expenses in most retirement budgets. It’s not only the federal income tax you should be concerned about but the full range of state, local, and federal taxes. The state and local taxes vary considerably. Also, some areas give tax breaks to the silver set, while […]
Taking Too Much Risk in Retirement
Investing in retirement is a relatively new field. We’ve been leaders in developing strategies that differ from the long-time conventional strategies, but people have been slow to follow. Most retirement portfolios are either too conservative or too risky. On the latter side are portfolios that continue the same allocation the owner adapted many years before […]
Delay Social Security, Buy Annuities
Your federal government is giving you retirement planning advice. The General Accountability Office issued a report July 1 titled “Retirement Income: Ensuring Retirement Income Throughout Retirement Requires Difficult Choices.” You might ask why the government is giving you and others retirement advice. The GAO compiles and issues reports after a member of Congress requests one. […]
Fees that Kill Retirement Plans
Most investors know whether they are buying load or no-load mutual funds. But few investors know how much they’re paying in fees on their retirement accounts, especially 401(k) plans. There are a number of fees imposed on some accounts. They’re disclosed, somewhere. It’s not always easy to find a total for the fees you’re paying. […]
