Social Security
Found 257 Articles.
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What’s Wrong with Stock Indexes and Index Investing
I’ve never been a fan of index investing or benchmarking a portfolio against an index. Passive investing is a different animal in my mind, and certain types of passive investing can be effective. Here’s another explanation of the problems with stock indexes, and it is consistent with views I expressed in the past. There are […]
Avoiding Costly Medicare Errors
The wild card in most retirement plans is medical spending. Too many people approach retirement believing Medicare and their last employer will cover most retirement medical costs. Even after people realize their full potential exposure to medical expenses, many miss critical opportunities to reduce their share of the costs and especially to reduce the uncertainty […]
Staying in the 15% (or Lower) Tax Bracket
Most retirement tax planning and tax discussions have the wrong focus. They look at marginal tax rates, or the tax rate on the next dollar of ordinary income earned. If you’re married and earning $50,000 annually, for example, your next dollar will be taxed at the 15% rate. That’s a fine approach during the working […]
Howard Marks on the Stock Market
Howard Marks of Oaktree Capital is one of our leading investors. He focuses on the credit markets, or bond markets, and generally looks for distressed opportunities and mispriced bonds. He recently sat down with Morningstar for an interview to give his assessment of the markets. He says the stock markets still aren’t overheated, despite recent […]
Peaking Behind the Stock Market Indexes
Most investors talk about “the market,” referring to the stock indexes. But you have to look behind the headlines or the index totals. There are many different stocks and sectors within an index. Your performance can be far higher or lower than the index depending on what you own. Looking into the details also can […]
Taking Early Retirement with Obamacare
The medical coverage gap is the bane of most early retirees. They leave their jobs and lose their employer-provided medical coverage. They aren’t eligible for Medicare, because they haven’t reached age 65. Unlike Social Security, Medicare doesn’t give you the option of beginning early. You could pay for a continuation of the employer coverage under […]
Why to Hate Stock Market Predictions and Forecasts
I don’t make many financial predictions and don’t make portfolio recommendations based on them. Yet, most financial and investment marketing these days seems to be based on predictions. Investors in general are captivated by predictions and spend a lot of time reading different forecasts and trying to determine which is right. Using predictions is a […]
Some Professional Investors Beat The Stock Market Indexes
You’re exposed to a lot of discussion about how the average mutual fund or money manager underperforms selected stock indexes. But not many people are aware that over the years, studies demonstrated that the averaged defined benefit pension plan earns higher returns than the average 401(k) account. Here’s one discussion of that. One way to […]
