Retirement Watch Weekly
A TIPS Update
Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS) have been around for 20 years now. How have they done as an investment? Morningstar.com reviews their performance, the expectations, and when TIPS might be good for a portfolio. The introduction of TIPS brought with it a market-determined observable real rate of interest, which is what the yield on a TIPS […]
Planning for Tomorrow’s Problems
How should portfolios be positioned for the long-term risks and worries in the economy? That’s the key question facing many investors today, and how you answer it matters a lot to your long-term financial independence. I don’t have to give you details about the risks and problems in the global economy. There are plenty of […]
The New Look in Obituaries
If you don’t prepare an obituary as part of your estate planning package, your heirs might have a bit of fun with it, according to The Wall Street Journal (subscription might be required). The article says that funeral home directors noticed that in recent years survivors have been willing to point out that no one […]
Defending Investment Management Fees
The Yale University Endowment Fund doesn’t follow the low-cost, index investing strategy of portfolio management. Instead, it owns a lot of hedge funds, private equity funds, and similar investments. The endowment pays a lot of fees to the managers of these funds, and it thinks that’s a good idea. In its annual report the endowment […]
Why Active Investment Management is So Hard
It’s not costs and fees. The problem also isn’t that managers are dumb, according to this article. It summarizes some academic research that largely has been ignored but does a better job of explaining how hard active management is than other approaches. The problem is that stocks actually are a bad long-term investment. A small […]
An Alternative to Assisted Living
This article argues that the zoning patterns after World War II should be reformed. In particular, families should be encouraged to have multiple generations in the same house or on the same property. It compares today’s animosity toward multiple generations in the same house to the practice not long ago for grandparents to live with […]
The Art Investing Portfolio
Some economists decided to measures the returns on art and compare them to other investments. One way they did that was to take the collection of John Maynard Keynes that he bequeathed to a college and follow it over the years. The results of the study aren’t favorable for those who view art as a […]
Reverse Mortgage Strategies to Avoid
I’ve discussed in Retirement Watch some situations in which a reverse mortgage can be a good financial tool. But there are other situations in which reverse mortgages aren’t appropriate. A recent settlement reported in the Boston Globe describes one of those cases. A couple was urged to take out a reverse mortgage and use the […]
