Retirement Watch Weekly
Finding Safe, Guaranteed Income
Protect my principal, and guarantee my income. Those are the goals of many investors today, especially those in or nearing their post-career years. Now that the equity markets no longer are rising steadily upward, investors aren’t looking for ways to match or beat the indexes. They’re looking to protect the nest eggs they’ve worked hard […]
October 2011
October 31, 2011 12:15 p.m. Your Retirement Finance Week in Review Last week was a wild, euphoric one in the markets, and it capped off a great month for equity investors. Stocks had their best month since 1974. The major indexes rose over 12%. A collection of good news hit the market recently. Of course, […]
Estate Planning Strategies That Benefit from Charitable Gifts Now
Most people have estate planning goals beyond leaving a legacy for loved ones. Many also hope to leave something to charity. Unfortunately, they often don’t know about all the tools available to make those charitable gifts, or that there are good reasons to make charitable gifts now instead of waiting to transfer wealth through your […]
Solving Couples’ Retirement Problems
Your retirement isn’t all about your finances. I regularly try to stress that point. Financial security and knowing you have a plan increase your options and peace of mind. But how you spend your time is critical to whether you are happy and have a successful retirement. Another key ?soft? aspect of your plan is […]
New Medicare Open Season Schedule in 2011
Medicare Open Enrollment is earlier this year. Medicare decreed that it will be Oct. 15 through December 7. The choice you make is effective January 1, 2012. During this period, people in traditional Medicare can choose a Medicare Advantage Plan, and those in Medicare Advantage can stay in their current plans, choose a new plan, […]
Taking Advantage of Market Declines
The silver lining in the recent market declines is you might be able to use tax strategies to recover some losses. We’ve been fortunate that the losses in our recommended in-vestments have been very modest. But you probably own assets beyond our recommended portfolios, and might have losses from a recommended investment if you bought […]
Fighting Back Against the Latest Scams
To learn about the latest financial scams and swindles, check the headlines. The con artists look at what’s hot and on people’s minds and adjust their traditional pitches to match the latest news. Their scripts often are “ripped from the headlines.” You also can bet that the cons try to tap either the fear or […]
No Place to Hide When the Stock Market Falls?
One thing usually happens in times of crisis. You can use this to identify a bad market from a period of serious system wide financial stress. In a crisis, investors sell off all risky assets and seek only safe havens. In investment geek terms, all correlations go to one. We’re seeing that now. The final […]
