Retirement Watch Weekly
The 7 “Action Steps” Missing from Your Estate Planning Checklist and Strategy
Most people, especially those with at least modest wealth, have engaged in some Estate Planning. Yet few people have complete plans. More likely than not, your estate plan is going to have gaps. There are plenty of anecdotes to support the statement, but there is also concrete evidence. I regularly see surveys of either estate […]
The Gig Economy And Retirement Jobs
This article says you might want to reconsider things if your plan includes spending a few years in retirement making extra money from gig jobs, such as driving for one of the ride-sharing companies. It says incomes have plummeted for drivers who use the technology companies. JP Morgan suggested that the growing number of drivers […]
Puerto Rico As A Tax Haven for Wealthy Retirees
Puerto Rico became a popular hurricane for some fairly wealthy U.S. residents after Hurricane Maria. This article explains the tax rules and profiles some of the people who decided to take up residence on the island to save a lot of money. To comply with Act 22, Nissman said, it all came down to what […]
Understanding Medicare
There shouldn’t be anything new here to readers of Retirement Watch and my books, but this article is a good review of the basics of Medicare and how to choose your coverage. Deciding on a type of plan is critical. Take the example of someone who wants more freedom to select health care providers because […]
Why All Investors Should Pay Attention to Emerging Markets
U.S. investors should pay attention to what’s happening in emerging markets, even if they’re not invested in those markets. Emerging markets had strong recoveries after a bear market ended in early 2016. Latin American markets were among the strongest, with equity returns outpacing U.S. stocks for most of 2016 and 2017. But the situation began […]
Learning From The Financial Crisis and Stock Market Crash
Two of the leading economists on financial crises wrote an essay on lessons that should be learned from the financial crisis. They include lessons that never should have been forgotten but that policymakers didn’t remember at key moments of the crisis. Financial crises do so much economic damage for a simple reason: they destroy a […]
The Charitable Remainder Trust: How to Protect & Stretch Your IRA
The number of people naming charitable trusts as IRA beneficiaries is climbing, and for good reasons. Typically, IRA beneficiaries are individuals, often the surviving spouse or the adult children of the owner. The goal often is to create a Stretch IRA, with the beneficiary taking only required minimum distributions (RMDs) each year so the tax-deferred […]
Why To Stay Invested even in a Bear Market
This article argues that the best way to protect your portfolio in the next downturn is to stay invested. You are very unlikely to be able to time both an exit near the top of the market and re-entry near the bottom. It’s better to stay invested. Why? Studies repeatedly show that individual mutual fund […]
