Nothing – and I mean nothing – will change your life as dramatically as the birth of your first child. It’s a wonderful experience and one that I hope everyone gets to experience. But it will turn your life upside down.
It’s probably bad form of me to slander my own profession, but sometimes it is roundly deserved. So today, I’m going to share some of the insights of Wesley Gray, Jack Vogel and David Foulke in their 2015 book DIY Financial Advisor.
Let me start by saying that I love the 401(k) plan. It’s the single best wealth accumulation vehicle available to the vast majority of Americans. At today’s contribution limits, you can defer $18,000 of income — and $24,000 if you’re…
2015 has been unkind to the mortgage REIT sector. The iShares Mortgage Real Estate Capped (REM), a basket of the largest and most actively traded mortgage REITs, is down a little over 8% year to date. Including the large dividend, that loss shrinks to …
If you want to win a Nobel Prize in the arts or sciences, it’s important to be original. But if you want to make money in the stock market, originality is vastly overrated. In fact, there are a plethora of research services dedicated to following…
An old friend wrote me with a question I thought I’d share. It’s a question asked by countless small business owners trying to navigate the complicated world of individual and family health insurance plans:
We’ve typically used high-deductible plans l…
Today I’m going to share an unconventional estate planning tip. I say “unconventional” because this is not the sort of advice you’ll get in a book or from a financial planner. But this might be the most important advice you will ever get, and i…
He may be a stone-cold killer with no conscience, but if Frank Underwood were a real-life candidate for the presidency, I would vote for him.
2014 has been a rough year to navigate. I went against the grain in January and bet big on one macro trend—that long-term interest rates would fall in 2014 rather than rise—and invested heavily in equity REITs and mortgage REITs. That bet paid off handsomely, and my conservative, income-oriented portfolios have had a great year. […]
This story has absolutely no economic significance. I’ve just always admired the Swiss approach to national security, and I’m a little sad to see the bombs under their bridges dismantled. With its cobbled streets and ornate houses, Bad Säckingen has little of the front line about it. But until recently, that is exactly how Swiss […
American Realty Capital Properties (ARCP) make some announcements today that I feared might be coming. The board of directors is suspending the dividend pending the release of its third quarter and year-end results and will reinstate it after doing a thorough review. Shares are down today by about 3% on the news implying that the […]
Let me start with one admission: I have no idea when the current slide in the oil price will end. I won’t insult your intelligence by putting out a price target because I – like everyone else — would be pulling a number out of thin air. Broad supply and demand imbalances do not cause market […]
GDP growth for the third quarter was revised higher, from 3.9% to 5.0%. But I’m viewing the numbers with a healthy dose of skepticism. I tossed out my thoughts on StockTwits this morning: Not to be a wet blanket here, but the bond market is NOT behaving like #GDP is growing at a 5% clip. […]
“In capital markets, price is set by the most panicked seller at the end of a trading day. Value, which is determined by cash flows and assets, is not. In this environment, the chaos is so extreme, the panic selling so urgent, that there is almost no possibility that sellers are acting on superior information. […]
With the market looking wobbly this December, the need to get paid in cold, hard cash has never been more apparent. If you are already in retirement, selling portfolio positions in a declining market to meet your living expenses is, for lack of better word, scary. Living off of dividend and interest income makes for […]
Shinzo Abe’s bet paid off. With Japan sinking back into recession and the effectiveness of “Abenomics” called into serious question, the Japanese prime minister called a snap election two years early to secure a governing mandate. Well, he got it. Shinzo Abe and his coalition partners got 68% of the vote, giving him the political [&…
I’ve been writing for a while now that the disappointing Black Friday sales didn’t tell the whole story. Yes, Black Friday sales were downby 11%, but the holiday discounting started weeks earlier this year and, frankly, the novelty appeal of Black Friday has worn off after six years of increasingly aggressive promotion. I’m concerne…
Beware the Russian bear! Think this guy is afraid of a little bear market? Think again! $RSX http://stks.co/q19eJ — Drasko Kovrlija (@NoanetTrader) Dec. 16 at 10:38 AM It’s been a wild ride for investors in Russian stocks–myself included. Russian stocks have proven to be a frustrating value trap, a cheap market that continues to get…
It’s been a rough run for Brazilian state-controlled oil giant Petrobras (PBR). The stock has been in almost continuous decline since late 2009 and its U.S.-traded ADR has lost nearly two-thirds of its value since July. This is a stock that was trading at over $70 per share in mid-2008. It now trades for barely […]
Diversified Asset Allocation Portfolios For Your Plans
| Vanguard ETF: | 10%* |  |
| Diversified Core: | 11%* | |
| Six Core Asset ETFs: | 10%* | |
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