Enhance Today | Enrich Tomorrow
As financial planners, we are often asked about how to fund retirement income needs. Traditionally income in retirement has been thought of as a three-legged stool-Social Security, pension, and withdrawals from savings. Today’s retirees still count on Social Security, some…
The value of investment advice can make a real difference over the life of your portfolio. In our previous post we noted that the research on Gamma identifies 5 financial planning strategies that add to retirement income. The first of…
A recent study from Morningstar suggests that implementing solid financial planning strategies can increase a retiree’s investment income by 29%, which they equate to an additional 1.82% in investment returns every year. If we consider a $1 million nest egg…
Traditionally the costs associated with investing have been fairly difficult to ascertain. Mutual funds charge expense ratios to pay managers and support staff while custodians and plan administrators also need to be compensated. These costs are deducted from the funds…
Have you been seeing the commercial below a lot lately? What is Medicare Open Enrollment? It is open enrollment season for Medicare prescription drug (Part D) and Medicare Advantage Plans (Part C). The enrollment period runs from October 15th through…
One of our most important jobs as financial advisors is to help our clients manage risk. This takes on many forms, but one of the most central is investment risk. We frequently hear the phrases, “I don’t want to lose…
Businessweek recently ran an article exposing $2 billion in losses last year among employees of the five largest Wall Street banks-JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley. The losses were attributable to company stock, in many…
There are many different strategies when it comes to retirement income. Proponents of a “bucket approach” recommend dividing your retirement investments into two buckets-one to cover short term cash flow needs and one to be invested in a diversified portfolio…
Behavioral Finance defines several investor biases that tend to inhibit financial success. The recent news of JP Morgan’s $2 billion loss demonstrates the danger that an overconfidence bias can be to your portfolio. Overconfidence bias is fairly self explanatory, but…
A few years ago I wrote about the rise of target date funds in retirement plans. At the time, the Senate Special Committee on Aging was proposing legislation that would require target date fund managers to take on fiduciary responsibility. …
