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Retire On Track Column

 

Friday, February 23, 2024

Dividend stocks have a stodgy reputation: low-growth, boring companies that provide steady income and little else. So when Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, announced its first dividend, the financial press...

 

Friday, February 9, 2024

In the past I’ve mentioned that adverse conditions in one area of the market can create opportunities elsewhere. For example, the increased interest rates we’ve suffered has hurt in lots of ways, but this environment has...

 

Friday, January 26, 2024

One of the biggest changes in retirement planning is that more and more people are working past typical retirement age. At the beginning of 2023, 19% of Americans aged 65 or older were still employed, according to the Pew Research...

 

Friday, January 12, 2024

When you’re a surgeon, you tend to see medical issues through the lens of a surgeon, with the scalpel as your tool in trade. There might be a different solution, however. Maybe you don’t need Dr. Shaun Murphy from...

 

Friday, December 29, 2023

A year ago Wall Street analysts expected the S&P 500 at the end of 2023 to be up 13% from 2022. There’s still time for the index to drop before the end of the year, but as of early December they year-to-date increase was almost...

 

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Friday, December 15, 2023

I can’t get away from these wedding and marriage TV reality shows. They’re seemingly everywhere. Some of the most popular involve a man or woman giving away roses to potential future spouses, culminating either in a...

 

Friday, December 1, 2023

I don’t spend much time anymore at malls or brick-and-mortar retail outlets. You probably don’t, either. We’re doing more shopping online and don’t care to brave the demolition derby experience of large parking...

 

Friday, November 17, 2023

Remember fondue? It’s been ages since I had it, and I think I have a pot with a set of fondue forks collecting dust somewhere. But at one time fondue was really popular, and a date at a fondue restaurant was considered the height...

 

Friday, November 3, 2023

Either you or your neighbor will be interested in this column, because about half the households in the U.S. had investments in mutual funds last year. That’s up significantly from the past few years, when the percentage was in...

 

Friday, October 20, 2023

In a solid but unspectacular year for stocks, it’s hard to ignore what NVIDA has done. While the S&P has gained in the 11% range for the year to date, NVIDIA’s price has soared about 450%. You might be kicking yourself for...

 

Friday, October 6, 2023

Many people don’t put a lot of thought into their life insurance. They choose it, pay the premiums, and tend to think of it only in terms of providing financial security for the policy’s beneficiaries. But it might be worth...

 

Friday, September 22, 2023

As we head into the home stretch of 2023, you should start thinking about some of the year-end financial decisions that can impact your taxes and estate. One of the common tasks I see clients working on from now until year-end is...

 

Friday, September 8, 2023

Remember the financial crash of 2007-08 that began with the collapse of mortgage-backed securities? I won’t say we’re on the precipice of anything that drastic, but it’s time to take a look at your exposure to...

 

Friday, August 25, 2023

Our expectations of when we’ll die has a lot of implications for our financial planning. Few people want to think deeply about the subject, but it’s important to several facets of a plan. When we’ll take Social...

 

Friday, August 11, 2023

With a potential decrease in interest rates in the coming months, an intriguing investment opportunity might be preferred shares of stock. This class of stock isn’t discussed much, maybe because they aren’t widely issued....

 

Friday, July 28, 2023

In early July the government reported that overall inflation in June was 3% on an annual basis. That continued a sustained drop in inflation, which was pretty good news—even in the wonky housing market. There’s still a long...

 

Friday, July 14, 2023

One of the most satisfying aspects of investing is benefiting from opportunities when the economy transforms. During the pandemic, for example, a lot of businesses adopted remote work as an option. In recent months we’ve started...

 

Friday, June 30, 2023

We talk a lot in our business about planning for events 20, 30, 40 years down the road. But the reality is that when you’re putting together a financial plan, one of the first orders of business should be to get an emergency fund...

 

Friday, June 16, 2023

My family was at a school gathering when we introduced ourselves to another family. The family’s teenage girl told us her name, following up with a sarcastic (I think), “I’m the troubled middle child.” The...

 

Friday, June 2, 2023

Remember the debt ceiling scare? We’ve gone from a panic in some circles that a government standoff will cause an economic collapse to “never mind—everything’s fine.” Meanwhile, after a deal was reached,...

 

Friday, May 19, 2023

Sure, you’ve heard of Walmart, Nike, and Apple. But small businesses actually account for about 99.9% of all U.S. businesses. There are around 33 million of them. Many of those small businesses are owned and led by people working...

 

Friday, May 5, 2023

About two years ago I made the mistake of getting into an argument with someone who believed that cryptocurrency was the future. Pro tip: Never argue with the crypto crowd. They have more time and energy than you do to spend on their...

 

Friday, April 21, 2023

The March numbers suggest that inflation might be easing, with an annual rate of increase at 5% for the month. That’s down from 6% in February and below the expected rate of 5.3%.Despite the positive headlines, a word of caution....

 

Friday, April 7, 2023

I was talking with an advisor who works with families that have generational wealth. He said that over his career, he’s noticed that the younger generations of these families have become increasingly concerned about the impact...

 

Friday, March 17, 2023

What I like most about the banks I use is that I hardly ever think about them. It’s there to handle certain services for me and my business. They take my money and invest it, but it’s always there when I need it.At least, I...

 

Friday, March 3, 2023

The pandemic has changed a lot of things about our lives. One of those changes concerns our attitudes about long-term care insurance (LTCI). According to a Forbes article, during the pandemic people have inquired more about LTCI,...

 

Friday, February 17, 2023

One of the benefits of getting older is that it’s easier to say “I don’t know” than it used to be. So when a client asks me about where the economy is headed, I have no problem saying I have no idea. I suspect...

 

Friday, February 3, 2023

One of the certainties in investing is that you pay a high price for certainty. You might crave it, understandably, but to get a high return you have to put up with a lot of risk. Amid a losing year for both stocks and bonds—a...

 

Friday, January 20, 2023

When groups concerned with financial literacy try to improve the next generations’ interest in investing, the conversation inevitably turns to the stock market game. You’ve seen it: Make your stock picks for the coming year...

 

Friday, January 6, 2023

One frequent complaint about Washington is that spending bills are laden with legislation and funding for projects that are unconnected with the bills’ intent, often included to obtain support from particular politicians or...

 

Wednesday, December 21, 2022

Readers, lend me your ears: As Antony said about Caesar, I come to bury crypto, not to praise it. OK, it’s an overstatement to say that crypto is dead. I have no idea what will happen to the digital currency, and the market for...

 

Tuesday, June 7, 2022

 

Tuesday, May 3, 2022

 

Tuesday, April 19, 2022

 

Friday, January 7, 2022

YOUR 4% WITHDRAWAL STRATEGY MAY NOT BE ENOUGH Get the Tax Guidance You Need to Help Live the Retirement You Desire There’s a lot of concern among industry experts about whether the popular 4% withdrawal rule can provide enough income...

 

Tuesday, September 22, 2020

It’s tough to be a bond investor when the ten-year Treasury note is yielding less than one percent. If you need to put cash to work, then your options are limited to either taking the income hit, accepting more risk, or locking...

 

Tuesday, September 15, 2020

With ads and articles constantly touting the importance of beating or at least keeping up with the Dow Jones or the S&P 500, you’re bound to become stressed if your funds’ or stocks’ performance is falling short....

 

Tuesday, September 8, 2020

We all knew it had to happen sometime. With little news to point to, the stock market dug a hole for itself during several recent trading sessions. Much of the carnage centered around the stocks with the giddiest rises over the past...

 

Monday, August 31, 2020

The Federal Reserve has a tough job but made its life—and possibly yours—a bit easier on August 27th at the Kansas City Fed’s symposium1. The Fed, remember, is somehow supposed to help the U.S. economy balance high...

 

Monday, August 24, 2020

As I write this, Amazon’s (AMZN) stock was up close to 78% on the year1, Apple (AAPL) was up by 69%2, and Netflix (NFLX) was up by 49%.3 Alphabet (GOOG), the parent company of Google, was up by a meager 18%.4 Come on, Google, get...

 

Monday, August 17, 2020

There’s good reason why index funds have become so popular. They can offer good value for the money. According to S&P Dow Jones Indices, 80% of United States large cap active funds didn’t beat the S&P 500 after costs over...

 

Tuesday, August 11, 2020

Want to know how the market feels about the future? Have a look at how much investors are willing to pay for a dollar of profits1. That’s the price-to-earnings ratio. It’s simply the stock price divided by the...

 

Tuesday, August 4, 2020

I’m going to take a step away from being a discouraged news junkie this week and marvel at one of the world’s most underappreciated inventions: the humble shipping container, those ugly, stenciled and frequently rusty steel...

 

Wednesday, July 29, 2020

One of the frustrating facets of any crisis is the opportunity they offer hacks and charlatans to have their moment in the sun. As famed journalist Hunter Thompson once said, “when the going gets weird, the weird turn pro...

 

Thursday, July 16, 2020

Many bond funds trade constantly in search of higher yield or capital appreciation. Well, individual bondholders want upside, too. So, when might it make sense to sell a bond you already own to buy another? Though there are some rare...

 

Tuesday, July 7, 2020

This pandemic economy is getting quirkier by the minute. State mandates change daily and we have little idea whether or how the Senate will continue to open the Treasury’s wallet so freely. There may be a national wave of...

 

Thursday, June 25, 2020

As divided as we are today, we do all share one thing in common: whenever we’re online, we scroll past dozens of little ads for overpriced facemasks. When I first noticed just how many ads for those things I’m bombarded...

 

Thursday, June 18, 2020

As if 2020 didn’t have enough on its plate, we’re approaching silly season. Yep, here comes the home stretch of the Presidential election cycle. True, it feels like it never really left, but we’re going to see a...

 

Thursday, June 11, 2020

The National Bureau of Economic Research, a private but highly regarded think tank, finally noticed we went into a recession in February1. That announcement came on June 8, the same day the S&P 500 returned to being positive for the...

 

Monday, June 8, 2020

Facebook today is very different today from the much smaller company that was born in Mark Zuckerberg’s dorm room. My, Mark Zuckerberg, how your child has grown. While Facebook’s growth has accelerated at an astonishing...

 

Monday, June 1, 2020

Though it’s too early to label the rapid bounce off market lows from March 23 a recovery, it has been one heck of a rebound. From the March 23 low of 2,237, the S&P 500 has gained 32% as of May 26. The index still has close to...

 

Wednesday, May 20, 2020

On Monday, Governor DeSantis’s new social-distancing rules went into effect. I won’t debate about which provisions make sense and which seem arbitrary, nor am I a Constitutional scholar. But, like most other states, we are...

 

Monday, May 18, 2020

Every generation has its defining moment, be it President Kennedy’s assassination, the space shuttle disaster, September 11th and/or the Great Recession. Our older children are having their moment right now, and that impact will...

 

Wednesday, May 13, 2020

It’s come time for another chat about America’s resident mad genius, Elon Musk. In the latest installment of “What Was He Thinking?,” Musk announced on May 1 via Twitter that he thought the stock of his company,...

 

Thursday, May 7, 2020

When the markets were skyrocketing to new heights, I reminded readers about the importance of diversification, managing risk and watching valuations. It wasn’t fun to be Sarasota’s “Debbie Downer” for a couple...

 

Monday, May 4, 2020

In business school, aspiring executives are taught to put shareholder return first. The usefulness of the product or service plays a role only in how it increases sales and lowers returns and warranty claims. Under the harsh light of...

 

Monday, April 20, 2020

As you’ve surely noticed by now, I’m confident about the long-term strength in the economy, even if the short-term outlook is virtually unknowable. But as much as I believe in the economy, it’s naïve to think...

 

Monday, April 13, 2020

Here’s to the first responders, the doctors, the nurses, the aides and the orderlies. And thank you to everyone working the night shift at grocery stores. And we’ll always be grateful to the mail carriers, warehouse workers...

 

Thursday, April 9, 2020

Here’s to the first responders, the doctors, the nurses, the aides and the orderlies. And thank you to everyone working the night shift at grocery stores. And we’ll always be grateful to the mail carriers, warehouse workers...

 

Thursday, April 2, 2020

When it comes to the long-term viability of the markets, I’m not worried. Most of us have lived through at least one or two historic market disruptions and that experience informs us. But the nation’s health experts...

 

Wednesday, March 25, 2020

Over the past few weeks, my feelings have evolved from “meh” at first to “hmm” as markets fell hard enough to even make the bears scared to invest. I’m still at “hmm.” As I’ve stressed...

 

Thursday, March 19, 2020

My, how times have changed. Parents used to order kids to go out and give their phones a break. Now we have to tell them to stay inside and message their friends all day. I’m seeing memes that say, “Introverts, put down...

 

Wednesday, March 4, 2020

Most bond investors don’t need to aggressively manage their portfolios, but bonds do need to be at least supervised. Interest rates change, tax losses can be harvested and, given enough time, long maturity bonds turn into short...

 

Monday, October 22, 2018

Tip: How Much? Check your Social Security earnings and see an estimate of your benefits on the website, www.ssa.gov. Social Security’s been a fact of retirement life ever since it was established in 1935. We all think we know how...