Quantifying a financial advisor’s value has become easier in recent years as financial services firms have undertaken and completed studies on the matter. Firms such as Vanguard, Morningstar, Dalbar and most recently Russell Investments, have added to the body of knowledge on this topic. The significant global changes of the past 24 months have prompted
Much has been written about investment behavioral mistakes and whether financial advisors can help clients generate market-beating investment outperformance. Amid all of the activity that investors and their advisors pursue in hopeful expectations of outperforming the market, it’s easy to overlook the risk that those activities might create below-market returns. Underperformance can easily come from
Shortfall Risk is the Greatest Risk to Retirement Success The greatest risk to retirement success? For most of us, it’s shortfall risk ‒ the chance that our savings will expire before we do. Shortfall risk typically arises from one or both of these shortcomings: (1) not taking the time and doing the work to study
Learning Lessons from the Market Correction Helps Us Become More Disciplined Investors The stock market’s plunge at the outset of the Covid-19 pandemic, when the S&P 500 index plunged 32% in five weeks, shook up a lot of investors and reminded all of us to refresh our memories of previous “lessons from the market correction.”
Retirement Distribution Planning May Help Minimize Your Overall Tax Expenses You’ll likely need to develop a retirement distribution planning strategy to help you minimize your overall tax expenses and help fund a more comfortable retirement, even after you’ve saved diligently and invested wisely throughout your working years. Without a retirement distribution planning strategy, you may
In Volatile Markets, Keep Your Bearings and Stay on Plan “In volatile markets, keep your bearings and stay on plan.” That’s always our guidance to clients when markets become unsettled, either to the upside or the downside. As of today, the S&P 500 has lost 17.7% in the five and one-half months since the beginning
You May Not Believe It Until You Read It, But It’s True. The shocking truth about index investing is that reality can be very different from theory. Index investing funds are wildly popular with Americans: As of year-end 2021, “passive” equity and fixed income index funds managed total net assets of $5.7 trillion, according to
With the days of company pensions faded into memory, it’s up to most of us to build and manage our own pension plans ‒ and manage the multi-million dollar retirement planning question ourselves. How much do we need? And what are the possibilities that we suffer shortfall risk – the possibility that our savings will
The year was 1983: The U.S. invaded Grenada. A gallon of gas cost 96 cents. Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” video premiered. That year was also the last time that recipients of Social Security disability benefits saw a cost-of-living increase steeper than the one just announced for 2022. This year, benefits will rise 5.9 percent, the sharpest
The SECURE Act, passed at the end of 2019, changed a number of rules regarding inherited IRAs, making it more difficult for most beneficiaries to save on taxes by “stretching” distributions over many years. However, an exception to the new rules potentially changes advice that special needs planners often give clients. For many reasons, it’s
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