Getty The (mostly) ups and downs of the 2019 market taught retirement savers invaluable lessons. But many may have missed the most important lesson. As 2019 approaches its conclusion, the stock market continues to reach all-time highs. It’s almost enough to forget what happened last summer. But you should remember how you felt when the
Retirement
Santa Claus putting a lump of coal in Congress’s Christmas stocking. Getty The House of Representatives earlier this afternoon passed two bills to provide $1.4 trillion in funding for defense and non-defense spending programs that must be appropriated on an annual basis. As is often the case with must-pass legislation at the end of the
Share to facebook Share to twitter Share to linkedin Holidays are a notorious time for financial fraud. Scammers capitalize on the generosity of their targets, particularly seniors. What can families do to give their older loved ones, especially aging parents a greater measure of financial safety? The World Health Organization estimates that one in six
©relif – stock.adobe.com How to use a simple hedge fund technique to your benefit I am not a tax advisor, and this is not tax advice per se. However, I am a portfolio manager. And, my core approach is similar to what the early hedge funds did, before the term “hedge fund” became an oxymoron.
Struggling workers need more help from Social Security. Getty Many older workers struggle financially as they approach retirement. They often have little saved to supplement their Social Security benefits. Worse, many of those who have few savings also face obstacles in finding good jobs at older ages or they deal with declining health that makes
The secret to growing your 401(k) Getty The Secret To A 9.5% Return: Your Clock Is Ticking There is a secret to getting a 9.5% return, and it has to do with time. Time allows anyone to achieve those returns through the math of compounding. It can be done with a short funding period, as
Getty When you’re closing in on retirement, the big financial question shifts from “How much should I be saving?” to “How can I make my money last?” Steve Vernon, a research scholar at the Stanford Center on Longevity and author of Retirement Game-Changers, offers a few smart answers in the new Friends Talk Money podcast
Happy Holidays! Steve Chen Happy holidays – give yourself the gift of tax savings As we head into the holiday season and New Years it can pay big dividends to spend a little time seeing if any year end moves can help you save a lot on taxes or improve your financial situation. This month
Getty A lot of people these days believe they’ll receive little or nothing from Social Security. They’ll hear otherwise from Social Security, which will provide statements of estimated benefits to those who request. Most workers who are age 60 or over are mailed the statements each year, whether they ask for them or not. Beginning
This survey of high-payout funds will steer you to the bargains and warn you of the pitfalls. How to pay for it? Getty Stocks and bonds yield 2% these days. That’s problematic if you had in mind withdrawing 4% a year from your savings. Wall Street’s answer to this predicament: a rich menu of exchange-traded
By Michele Wojciechowski, Next Avenue Contributor Getty It’s the most wonderful time of the year — unless you get scammed. “In this season of generosity, people let down their guards and tend not to be as skeptical as they would be the rest of the year,” says Christopher Elliott, founder of the consumer-advice nonprofit Elliott Advocacy
Stressed Asian Senior Couple calculate their monthly expense with laptop computer. Debts, Saving, … [+] Financials with Retirement. Getty Worried about a 2018 (or worse, a 2009) repeat? Good news: I’ve got a closed-end fund (CEF) that should be on your list no matter what happens: it carries a special “insurance” policy if markets head
null Getty The way to protect your portfolio isn’t large caps–it’s large yields. And the very best ones often come in small packages, such as the three “underappreciated dividends” yielding up to 15% that I’m about to show you. I’m talking about funds that pay big, secure dividends. When pullbacks happen, these funds’ prices don’t
Jamila Souffrant knew she needed a change. Her three-hour round-trip commute from where she lived in Brooklyn, NY to work in New Jersey had gotten on her last nerve. Meanwhile, she felt like she was missing some of her two young sons’ growth, with all the back-and-forth. That’s when she heard about the financial independence
Getty As people look ahead to their retirement years, a primary objective is to identify areas of risk, with the goal of eliminating each and every risk that they believe could cause them harm. Experienced planners are trained to listen to these concerns, and their recommendations are typically well-intentioned efforts to meet this goal of
Getty Estate planning is a complex world for most Americans. For many, the process can seem overwhelming and expensive. For others, it is uncomfortable to confront one’s mortality and requires tough decision making. But regardless of one’s feeling on estate planning, there is one estate planning document that all Americans should have: A Health Care Directive. But what
Getty Today the National Academy of Social Insurance (NASI) released the winners of the Social Security Policy Innovations Challenge it sponsored along with the AARP. I’m happy to say that among the four winning proposals is one with my name on it, so I have been waiting impatiently for this press release so I could
Upset mature couple ignoring each other. Close up of a worried senior man in tension at bed. Senior … [+] couple angry with each other after a fight. Getty Brilliant bond manager Jeffrey Gundlach—aka the “bond god”—has decreed that it’s time to sell “junk” bonds. And he’s gone as far as to say that one-third
Top secret red grunge stamp Getty Since the dawn of regulation of mutual funds in America (1940) until early in the new millennium, the fund industry enjoyed a largely underserved reputation for responsible stewardship and high integrity. While I remain the only mutual fund compliance director in history to ever turn whistleblower, I can assure
WASHINGTON, D.C. – APRIL 14: Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) speaks to a crowd gathered on the West … [+] Front of the U.S. Capitol building for a rally with Teamsters Union retirees who traveled from across the country to voice their opposition to deep cuts to their pension benefits on April 14, 2016, in Washington,