Bob Carlson offers his expert opinion on where to invest your money so that you can get through retirement safely and securely
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IRA required minimum distributions (RMDs) mess up the financial plans of many IRA owners and create a new set of problems for them. But you can overcome these problems. While the tax code requires IRA owners to begin minimum annual distributions after age 70½, most IRA owners don’t need the money to pay their living […]
We’ll soon know if the recent rally in the markets will continue, because fourth-quarter earnings reports are being rolled out. Most markets had a dismal fourth quarter of 2018. But markets turned a corner after Christmas and the subsequent rallies are impressive. While the S&P 500 still is down 4.28% for the last three months, […]
Lifetime income security is what everyone wants in retirement, but it is increasingly a challenge to achieve. Low interest rates and investment returns, longer life spans, inflation, long-term care expense, medical expenses, higher taxes and more are major obstacles to achieving financial security in retirement. Everyone wants what I call the “Second Social Security Check.” […]
Last week’s Employment Situation reports were extremely strong, but don’t use them as good indicators of the strength of the economy or its trend. The nonfarm payrolls report showed that 312,000 new jobs were created, and revisions added a total of 58,000 jobs for the previous two months. The number of new jobs was well […]
What you don’t know about retirement can hurt you. In fact, just a few wrong decisions in your investments, taxes, or estate planning could completely derail your retirement plans. Worse yet, the rules of the game keep changing, making it harder to keep up. For these reasons, I’ve assembled all the key points – everything you need to know — into one comprehensive report. Click here today for free access.
While Treasury bonds outperformed stocks in 2018, what happened within the bond markets was more important to investors. Stocks outperform bonds over the long term, but bonds have better years from time to time. Treasury bonds have outperformed the major stock indexes for only a few calendar years since the end of the financial crisis. […]
Almost everyone’s 2018 predictions were wrong. But that’s almost always the case. We had another year of unexpected and startling changes in the economy and markets. Trends couldn’t have been much better than they were at the end of 2017. The economy was surging across the board, and U.S. stock indexes were moving steadily higher. […]
Recent inflation data are sending a warning to the Federal Reserve, but the Fed doesn’t seem to be heeding it. About a year after the financial crisis hit bottom, I presented a workshop to a group of individual investors. One of the group members gave me a hard time. I had said inflation would stay […]
Dear Reader: Would you rather spend $3 a day for something or $1,095 a year? Which makes you more likely to pay for something by a certain date: a 20% discount for early payment or a 20% penalty for paying later? The answer to both these questions is supposed to be that it doesn’t matter. […]
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