Retirement Watch Weekly
The Father of High Frequency Trading
Fortune tracked down a man, now retired from finance, that it believes is the father of high-frequency trading. HFT is the subject of Michael Lewis’s latest book, Flash Boys, that portrays HFT as being a major negative for most investors. In interviews, he says because of HFT the market is rigged. Many others have disagreed. […]
A Bullish Case from Low Stock Market Volatility
Some people at the Fed leaked a story last week that Fed officials were worried about low market volatility. Volatility is indeed low, indicating that investors are complacent and also that they aren’t making any big bets on the economy or markets. This post makes an interesting case that the Fed leaked this story simply […]
Why People Don’t Switch Medicare Part D Prescription Drug Plans
A few months back I reported on a survey that found many Medicare beneficiaries are paying about double the premiums they should be for their coverage under Part D Prescription Drug plans. Here’s a report on a recent survey from the Kaiser Family Foundation seeking to find reasons why people don’t switch Part D plans […]
Losing Investment Models
Ever since the financial crisis, and especially in the aftermath dominated by the Fed’s quantitative easing, I’ve noticed that old investment models generally don’t work. There are many mutual funds and investment firms that built models that worked very well for a long time. Some had models to pick stocks or bonds, Others had models […]
June 2014
Save the Date: Join me and a star-studded cast of 50+ financial experts at The MoneyShow San Francisco, this August 21-23! Get their latest stock picks, current market outlooks, most successful trading strategies and more when you attend the Show at the Hilton Union Square. Registration is now open, so reserve your place today! To […]
Prevailing in the Long-Term Care Crisis
The good news about long-term care is that the cost is rising at a slower rate. Yet, LTC still is ex-pensive and its cost is rising at a faster rate than general inflation. The latest annual Cost of Care Survey from Genworth, the leading LTC insurer, at www.genworth.com, found that when LTC is needed the […]
Estimating Retirement Medical Expenses
The ability to handle lifetime medical expenses is the key to a sustainable retirement, according to new studies such as one by the Employee Benefits Research Institute. Yet, medical expenses also are the wild card in retirement finance, because they are the hardest expenses to estimate. To handle the issue successfully, don’t fudge the numbers, […]
Estate Planning for Digital Assets
We moved rapidly from a paper to a digital business and financial world. Digital as-sets and transactions probably are a bigger part of your life than you realize, even when you think you don’t use much technology. The digital world needs to be in your estate plan, otherwise the cost and time involved in settling […]
