I’m going to spend the next couple of blogs talking about the horrifying (sarcasm) specter of rising interest rates. This is in hopes that I won’t have to talk about it for the rest of the year. Yeah, right. If you spend any time watching/reading financial news prognosticators, (which you shouldn’t because it’s bad for…
One of the perils of working in financial planning is that you speak in this weird language that you think others understand, but they don’t. This is where I rely on my friends to let me know when I am writing in financial-babble. So, this blog goes out to my good, honest friend Dana Lynch. …
Here’s a little secret that most investment salespeople will not tell you: The actual investments you choose aren’t really that important. Buying Whole Foods or Walmart or Kroger stock is the least important financial decision you will make. What? How can that be, you say? My adviser is an expert at picking money making investments. …
Bottom-up Investing: No, this is not a reference to Kim Kardashian breaking the internet. Bottom-up mutual fund managers research companies individually and without regard to the current economic cycle, geography, or other big picture considerations. Asset Allocation: I’ll spend more time on this later. For now, know that Asset Allocation is the combination of different…
Here’s a topic that many people wish they knew more about. That, and whether the new college football playoff system will be better than the BCS. Exchange Traded Funds (aka ETFs) were introduced in 1993 with the launch of the S&P 500 Depository Receipt (or SPDR). This was a mutual fund-like investment that pooled investor’s…
You may think of investment people as nerds (and you are mostly right), but we have areas where we are passionate, too. One of them is whether index investing or active management is better. On the Index side, you have people who sometimes refer to themselves as Bogleheads (kind of like Parrotheads, but WAY less…
Happy New Year! In December I veered off in all sorts of random directions with the blog. Between year-end to-dos and general revelry, I got way off task with the decoding financial jargon goal. So, back to work we go. In past blogs, I’ve explained what a mutual fund is, how to do research picking…
Happy New Year! In my financial planning business, I work with three distinct groups: Those who are just starting out in their professional and investing lives (ages 25-30) People who are building careers, families, and savings portfolios (30s – 50s) Pre-retirees or people who have recently retired (50s and beyond) Following are the New Year’s…
Second in a 2-Part Series In part one you have madly scrambled to increase your retirement plan savings and sign up for your Flexible Spending Account during the last milliseconds of open enrollment. Now, let’s talk about the other 3 items on the list. #3 Harvest Tax Losses In your non-retirement (a.k.a. taxable) accounts, you report…
Last week, we saw how bond prices change based on the interest rate being paid by newer bonds in comparison with older ones that have already been bought by consumers. We also saw 2 weeks ago how you might diversify your bond holdings by having some that are super-safe (US Government issued), pretty safe (bonds…
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