Retirement Watch Weekly
Timing Your Investment Sales, Gifts and More
We’re heading into the end of the year. For many people, this is an opportunity to minimize your income taxes for the year, especially capital gains taxes. Actions you take, or don’t take, the rest of the year could have a substantial impact on your 2016 tax bill. Before we dive into the details, keep […]
Knowing When RMDs Can Be Delayed
Not everyone has to begin taking required minimum distributions (RMDs) from all qualified retirement plans right after reaching age 70½. There are a few exceptions in the tax code. The exceptions don’t apply to IRAs. You must take RMDs from traditional IRAs after age 70½. But the exceptions do apply to some qualified retirement plans, […]
Optimizing RMDs from IRAs
It is time for many individual retirement arrangement (IRA) owners to consider carefully their required minimum distributions (RMDs). When you’re older than age 70½, you have to take RMDs from IRAs and other qualified retirement plans each year. The IRS realized a few years ago that many people were calculating their RMDs wrong, or not […]
Shrewd Ways fro Charitable Giving This Year and Beyond
Don’t wait until December to plan your charitable giving. Don’t do what can be even worse: Wait to make charitable gifts, especially cash gifts, through your estate. When you take either or both of those widely followed actions, you could be leaving a lot of money on the table. That money could have benefitted you, your […]
Europe Could Return to the Headlines Soon
October 13, 2016 Europe Could Return to the Headlines Soon With the exception of the Brexit vote, investors haven’t worried much about Europe for a couple of years. After the European financial crisis didn’t bring the world economy to its knees, Europe stabilized and then improved a bit. Quantitative easing from the European Central Bank […]
Revisiting the 4% Rule
I’ve been a long-term critic of 4% as the “safe spending rate” or the 4% rule. The basic premise of the 4% rule is that to ensure your nest egg lasts through retirement, you should withdraw no more than 4% the first year and increase it by the inflation rate each year after that. This […]
The Third Quarter Surprises Analysts — Again
The third quarter was another one full of surprises for those trying to anticipate the markets. Let’s take a look at what the major asset classes did during the quarter. Despite a lot of negative headlines and pessimistic analysts, stocks had another good quarter across the globe. The S&P 500 rose 3.78% for the quarter, […]
Anatomy of Penny Stocks
The penny stock world often attracts investors looking for the big score. They’ve heard stories of investors buying Xerox or IBM when they first went public and were at very low prices. A few decades later early investors were multi-millionaires. But the penny stock world also is full of risky companies and some outright scams. […]
