Retirement Watch Weekly
Second Homes and Vacation Homes
This time of year, many people’s thoughts turn to second homes and vacation homes. Some return from a winter vacation and think about buying a place in that location to spend a month or more in the winter. Others think about a summer place. Many times, these second homes are intended as an eventual retirement […]
Maximizing the Power of the Stretch IRA
You probably know the basics of establishing the Stretch IRA: name younger beneficiaries, be sure your beneficiary designations are up to date and discuss the Stretch IRA with your beneficiaries. If so, it’s time for you to consider the next steps to maximize the after-tax value of your IRAs for the next generation. You want […]
Waiting for the Economy to Catch up with Sentiment
The surge of optimism among households and businesses still isn’t reflected in economic activity, other than stock prices and the labor market. To put it another way, consumer and business optimism increased since October, but behavior hasn’t changed. The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index recently surged to its highest level since December 2004. Consumer Confidence, […]
Transferring Family Real Estate To Heirs and Beneficiaries
Some assets require special Estate Planning. One such asset is what I sometimes call heirloom real estate or family real estate. This is a property that’s been in the family for a while and that you’d like to continue in family ownership. Heirloom real estate includes vacation homes or other second homes, farms, a longtime […]
7 Deadly Estate Planning Mistakes to Avoid
Estate Planning mistakes tend to be one of the classics. While every estate plan has unique features, the same problems and mistakes recur. Many mistakes don’t vary with the value of an estate and other factors. Each of the classic mistakes is avoidable. All that’s needed is knowledge of what to beware of and a […]
Jay Leno’s Wealthbuilding Diversification Strategy
Most people have heard about diversifying their investments. Few have heard about diversifying their income sources. This article explains that Jay Leno and many others always tried to have more than one source of income and would save a lot of their income. Anyone can employ this strategy — it all starts with creating at […]
Bulls and Bears Within the Broader Markets
Most investors and the media focus on the broad market indexes, but there are a lot of changes taking place in the stock markets that aren’t reflected in the major indexes. Let’s take a look at these changes, using the Dow Jones indexes. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 5.4% for 2017 and […]
Predicting Stock Market Bubbles and Crashes
Some professors at Harvard concluded that it is possible to anticipate which of those rises in stock market sectors will burst and lead to a crash. After studying a lot of bubbles and crashes and running the data through computers, they concluded that there are common characteristics in stock market crashes. Even so, their tools […]
