Should You Care What the Financial Markets Do Each Day? May 18, 2020 Focusing on Your Strategy During Turbulent Times. Investors are people, and people are often impatient. No one likes to wait in line or wait longer than they have to for something, especially today when so much is just a click or two away. This impatience also manifests itself in the financial markets. When stocks slip, [...]
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How Women Can Prepare For Retirement May 11, 2020 A practical financial checklist for the future. When our parents retired, living to 75 amounted to a nice long life, and Social Security was often supplemented by a pension. The Social Security Administration estimates that today’s average 65-year-old woman will live to age 86½. Given these projections, it appears that a retirement of 20 years [...]
Pullbacks, Corrections, and Bear Markets May 11, 2020 What’s the difference? What do these terms mean for you? The COVID-19 outbreak has put tremendous pressure on stock prices, prompting some investors to blindly and indiscriminately sell positions at a time when the entire market is trending lower. Worried investors believe “this time it’s different.” When the market drops, some investors lose perspective that [...]
Roth IRA Conversion in the Era of COVID-19 May 4, 2020 Is it right for you? The COVID-19 pandemic has shaken up nearly every aspect of American life. To say it’s been a difficult time would be an understatement. However, difficult times may open doors to new possibilities. Businesses are changing their ways of operating, and individuals are exploring new avenues for investment. It may be [...]
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What is an Annuity? May 4, 2020 What you should know about them. Individuals hold about $2.2 trillion in annuity contracts; a tidy sum considering an estimated $9.2 trillion is held in all types of IRAs.1 Annuity contracts are purchased from an insurance company. In exchange, the insurance company makes regular payments to the buyer — either immediately or at some future [...]
The Federal Reserve’s Unprecedented Moves April 27, 2020 What they are. How they help. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, almost every state in America is under some sort of stay-at-home order. This unprecedented time has also led many businesses, large and small, to downsize or close up shop entirely. In response to the drastic impact that COVID-19 has had on global and [...]
Spotting Credit Trouble March 30, 2020 How to check for problems. Americans aged 45 to 54, who have credit card balances, carry an average debt of $9,096 per individual.1 The wise use of credit is a critical skill in today’s world. Used unwisely, however, credit can rapidly turn from a useful tool to a crippling burden. There are several warning signs [...]
Cybersecurity March 24, 2020 Protecting yourself from potential calamity. Cybercrime affects both large corporations and private individuals. You’ve likely read about the large data breaches in the business world. These crimes are both expensive and on the rise. The U.S. Identity Theft Resource Center says that these corporate data breaches reached a peak of 1,632 in 2017. The response to [...]
Measuring the Value of a Financial Advisor March 16, 2020 One study asserts that these relationships can make a difference for investors. What is a relationship with a financial advisor worth to an investor? A 2019 study by Vanguard, one of the world’s largest money managers, attempts to answer that question. Vanguard’s whitepaper concludes that when an investor works with an advisor and receives professional [...]
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Can You Put Your IRA into a Trust? March 9, 2020 What you should know about naming an IRA beneficiary. Can your IRA be put directly into a trust? In short, no. Individual retirement accounts (IRAs) cannot be put directly into a trust. What you can do, however, is name a trust as the beneficiary of your IRA. The trust would inherit the IRA upon your [...]