Retirement Watch Weekly
A Rally or a New Bull Market?
Most investment assets hit bottoms around February 11 after dreadful starts to the year. Is everything okay now, or is this what’s known as a countertrend rally? This article from Ben Hunt of Salient Partners argues that it’s a temporary rally, what he calls an investable rally. Central banks are taking a break in their […]
The Transformation of GE
General Electric was a legendary company in the 1980s and 1990s. CEO Jack Welch was considered one of the world’s top managers, and many companies tried to emulate GE’s methods. After Welch retired, the company hit a number of speed bumps. The biggest was the financial crisis of 2008. Since then, CEO Jeff Immelt has […]
How to Optimize Delivery to Your Email Account
Unsolicited email, commonly referred to as SPAM, poses a major challenge when it comes to delivering the emails that YOU have paid us to deliver. As the volume of SPAM increases, ISPs and have become increasingly zealous in their filtering efforts. We have partnered with the industry’s leading delivery experts to do everything we can […]
Does the Stock Market accurately predict the Economy?
Media reports usually try to interpret the latest market results by telling us what they mean about the economy or something else. In other words, the market is said to be an information processing machine, and we need only to know how to interpret what it says. Howard Marks of Oaktree Capital disagrees. In his […]
The Dangers of Index Investing
This article reviews a number of articles that researched effects index investing might have on companies, the economy, and others. It found evidence that index investing can make it more difficult to manage companies, hurt consumers, and cause other secondary effects that weren’t anticipated by the investors and don’t receive much discussion. Another group of […]
Assessing the High-Yield Bond Market
This Bloomberg.com article interviews several of the top high-yield fund managers about their current assessments of the market. The top manager of the last decade is optimistic. He believes the recent sell off and concerns about a recession are unwarranted. Others aren’t as optimistic. But none of the managers recommends across the board buying in […]
Helping Your Executor Fulfill Your Estate Planning Strategy
Too many estate planning strategies ignore one of the keys to their success. An important driver of a plan’s outcome is the job performed by your executor or administrator. You appoint this person, or several persons in your estate planing strategy, but you won’t be around to oversee or guide. Yet, there are steps you […]
How Interest Rates Affect Your Estate Planning
Interest rates were expected to rise the last couple of years. Instead, rates declined. They declined again to open 2016. Interest rate changes matter to your estate plan. Some strategies are better when rates are low and others when rates are higher. Especially when your estate might be taxable or you don’t want to shelter […]
