Retirement

Getty With household American debt now at roughly $14 trillion dollars, it’s no surprise many Americans are struggling to manage their debt and establish positive financial habits. Mortgage debt is by far the largest source of American debt, sitting at $9.83 of the $14.12 trillion. Following mortgages is student loan debt, which hit $1.5 trillion in
0 Comments
Couple celebrating with sparklers at the beach Getty If you’ve been holding the Cohen & Steers Quality Income Realty Fund (RQI)—a fund I wrote about a lot in 2019—you’ve done very well indeed. RQI has dominated, with its market-price return surging 51.9%, including gains and dividends, since the start of 2019. So today we’re going
0 Comments
Job seekers wait in line for a job fair June 4, 2009 in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo by Scott Olson) Getty Images Right now I am attending meetings hosted by the American Economic Association in San Diego, a conference that is basically Mecca for academic economists. Disturbingly, there are a lot of sessions on whether we
0 Comments
CHICAGO – MARCH 16: A Chicago Police boat patrols the Chicago River in Chicago, Illinois on March … [+] 16, 2019. (Photo By Raymond Boyd/Getty Images) Getty Images Here are some excerpts of interest from a May 26, 1965 Chicago Tribune story, “Police, Fire Pensions Tabled”: “Three important police and firemen’s pension bills appeared defeated
0 Comments
Happy smiling young golden retriever dog under light gray plaid. Pet warms under a blanket in cold … [+] winter weather. Pets friendly and care concept. Getty The New Year is here, which means it’s once again time to revisit a contrarian (and income) investing tradition: The “Dogs of the Dow.” This simple yet famous
0 Comments
Getty Think you can just sign up for a 401(k) and forget about it? Think again. With only 13% of private sector employees with access to a defined benefit pension, more of the heavy lifting towards securing a sound retirement is falling on the shoulders of American employees themselves. The most widely used but perhaps
0 Comments
Getty Thinking of retiring abroad in 2020? Have you seen these headlines in recent months? “Death Toll in Chile Protests Since October Rises to 27,” “Nicaragua Has a Simple Message for Protesters: Don’t,” “Thousands Flee to Shore as Australia Fires Turn Skies Blood Red,” “Hong Kong Protesters Return to Streets as New Year Begins,” “Strike
0 Comments
By Megy Karydes, Next Avenue Contributor Getty When making New Year’s resolutions, some people choose to set an intention or goal and some choose a particular word to help them stay focused. Others, like Chicagoans Tracy Marks-Seglin, founder of Strategic Words Communications, and her urban planner husband Dave, think about what they want less (and
0 Comments
Financial queue (Photo by Dominic Lipinski) PA Images via Getty Images To live off a portfolio, you need yield. But you can get into terrible trouble reaching for it. These days the average payout on stocks and bonds is a meager 2%, and it’s hard for a retiree to survive on that. I’ll show you
0 Comments
Getty As a new decade and year are about to begin, professional forecasters are, of course, going through the exercise of guesstimating the future course of the markets and U.S. economy. From what I’ve seen, they’re generally expecting the record-breaking U.S. expansion to continue at a middling 2% pace in 2020. Among the factors routinely
0 Comments
Bond prices are sensitive to interest rate changes, and bond duration is a measure of just how sensitive. For instance, in Exhibit 1.1 (shown in my last article), an increase in interest rates for the simple bond from 3 percent to 4 percent caused the bond’s price to fall by 8.1 percent. This bond has
0 Comments
By Jamie Hopkins, Next Avenue Contributor Getty The new Setting Every Community Up For Retirement Enhancement (SECURE) Act, just signed by President Trump, is the broadest piece of retirement legislation passed in 13 years. Ultimately, the law focuses on retirement planning in three key areas: 1) modifying required minimum distribution (RMD) rules for retirement plans;
0 Comments