Retirement Investing

Bob Carlson offers his expert opinion on where to invest your money so that you can get through retirement safely and securely

Found 896 Articles.
Get access to our full article archive by subscribing to Retirement Watch and Retirement Watch Spotlight Series.

Gold and Silver

How You Buy Gold Matters

August 19, 2011

Publication: Retirement Watch Weekly

It’s no secret that gold’s been rising rapidly. But not all investors who saw this coming and sought to profit from it are doing well. Some investors bought shares of gold mining companies or mutual funds that do the same. Normally, that’s a good move. The mining companies usually rise more than the price of […]

Stocks

Time to Buy Stocks?

August 16, 2011

Publication: Retirement Watch Weekly

With stocks in a downdraft and well below recent highs, it’s time to consider the unthinkable question: Is this a good time to add to your stock positions? Let’s look at two pieces of data. The first is the net flows of mutual funds. Investors have been pulling money out of equity mutual funds for […]

Cash Management

Seeking Higher Yields for Safe Cash

August 1, 2011

Publication: Retirement Watch, Retirement Watch Weekly

The Federal Reserve is punishing savers. People who set money aside in safe, secure, liquid investments are losing purchasing power. The Fed is keeping short-term interest rates near zero. That means real yields (after inflation and taxes) are less than zero. Low interest rates aren’t good for some financial firms either. Yields on money market […]

Diversification

Portfolio Diversification Harder to Accomplish

July 13, 2011

Publication: Retirement Watch Weekly

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 […]

SUBSCRIBE TO RETIREMENT WATCH SPOTLIGHT SERIES

In my new Retirement Watch Spotlight Series, I’ll share my newest breakthrough strategies for protecting your assets and growing your portfolio, including how to prepare for the next market downturn. Click here now to learn more.

Stocks

Don’t Own Stocks for the Long Run

July 7, 2011

Publication: Retirement Watch Weekly

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 […]

Risk Management

Taking Too Much Risk in Retirement

July 6, 2011

Publication: Retirement Watch Weekly

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 […]

Dividend Investing

Finding Higher Dividend Yields with Safety

June 28, 2011

Publication: Retirement Watch Weekly

The Federal Reserve’s been punishing savers in favor of the big banks and others by keeping short-term interest rates dirt low since 2008. Investors in safe investments (such as short-term treasury bills, money market funds, and certificates of deposit) are earning less than 1% annually. After taxes and inflation, the real return is negative. Some […]

Cash Management

Taking a Close Look at Money Market Funds

June 28, 2011

Publication: Retirement Watch Weekly

Money market funds are in the news again. Since their development in the 1970s, money market funds were considered ultra-safe places to store cash. Most investors considered them to be like cash that pays interest. Their net asset values always were $1.00. That changed in 2008 when the Reserve money market funds revealed they owned […]