Retirement Watch Weekly
Reviewing Your Will and Estate Planning
Your will and estate plan need to be reviewed. Be sure they are ready for coming changes. A key tool in many estate plans especially needs some re-working soon. Otherwise, you might be caught in a trap. The current lifetime estate and gift tax exemption is $1 million per person. It rises in 2004, and […]
How to Evaluate Long Term Care Insurance Policies
Few financial transactions are more complicated than buying long-term health care insurance. Also, few single transactions have potentially greater and longer-lasting consequences. We’ve covered the basics and more in past visits, most recently in June 2002 (available on the web site Archive). Let’s take a look at the next level of issues you are likely […]
Your Portfolio And The Economy
Most investors try to forecast the economy and use that forecast to manage their investments. Don’t take that route. There is a long-term relationship between stocks and the economy. Over short and even intermediate-term periods, there is not a strong tie between stock returns and the economy. We don’t have to look back too far […]
Carlson’s Choice Mutual Funds
I keep our portfolios streamlined with my best ideas, but some of you want more than one fund for a sector. For these readers, we’ll take a look at some other funds to consider. One of my favorite approaches to stock market investing is to invest with a good stock picker who buys only his […]
How To Make The Most Of Your Tax Cuts
Another major tax cut rolled through Congress by the end of May, providing significant benefits to all investors. You might need to change some of your tax and investment strategies to reap the maximum benefits of the new law. There also are a few traps to avoid. Let’s take a look at the basics of […]
Bonds Or Bond Funds?
Yields are at four decade lows. Investors are looking for ways to increase income without increasing risk. The obvious way to increase yields is to reduce expenses on investments. The search for lower expenses revives the longtime debate over whether it is better to buy bond mutual funds, individual bonds, or the relatively new exchange […]
How to Beat The High Cost of Investing
Cutting the cost of investing is more important than it has been in years. Expenses didn’t matter much when the stock market returned over 20% annually and bonds yielded over 8%. In the next 10 years, however, I expect bonds won’t return more than their current yields, and the annual average return from stocks will […]
Ten Simple Estate Planning Strategies To Protect Assets
For the first time in years, I am hearing again from subscribers who seek to protect their assets from lawsuits and creditors. Those in the medical profession feel especially vulnerable. Other business owners and professionals are hurt by rising insurance costs or reductions in coverage. All are seeking other ways to protect themselves. In addition, […]
