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Monthly Archives: June 2009
A New Blogging Concept
Over the next month, I’ll be posting a blog entry every day. Each post will describe a common financial term in what I hope to be casual and understandable language. The premise of this activity is that people should never invest in something they don’t understand. For example, would you invest in a machine that [...]
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Supercharge Your 401k
New research shows 401k plan participants would be well-served to receive the services of a fee-only independent financial advisor. A Charles Schwab study revealed that 401k participants who sought professional assistance in allocating their assets earned a significantly greater rate of return than those who did not. The data examines 2006 returns and is broken [...]
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Monday Update
Wall Street has had a rough day after the Chicago Board of Trade’s Volatility Index (VIX) soared 12.5 percent to a measure of 31.49. Traditionally, a VIX measurement above 30 indicates an anticipated rise in the volatility of market prices. Of course, high volatility is usually viewed as a bearish sign and frequently leads to [...]
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Recharacterizing a Roth Conversion
When a traditional IRA is converted into a Roth account, the transaction is treated as a taxable distribution from the traditional IRA, followed by a contribution of the distributed amount to a Roth IRA. Such a conversion triggers an income-tax bill based on the traditional IRA’s value on the conversion date. If a conversion took [...]
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Minimize Your Tax Bill
When considering converting your traditional IRA into a Roth IRA the first question you should ask is: Do you anticipate being in a lower, higher or the same tax bracket during retirement? If retirement withdrawals or other sources of income will keep you in the same or push you into a higher tax bracket, why [...]
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Fee-Based vs Fee-Only
Yesterday, my mother called to inform me that Suze Orman’s book had an incorrect definition of what a fee-only planner is. My mom was wondering why Mrs. Orman’s definition of fee-only was so different from what I do. When I read Mrs. Orman’s book, I quickly realized the issue. My mother had confused the phrase [...]
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More Positive News
Thursday morning reports showed jobless claims fell last week and retail sales ticked higher in May. Initial claims for unemployment benefits fell by 24,000 last week to 601,000, a much sharper drop than expected. This comes after the May jobs report showed an unexpectedly small number of job losses. Meanwhile, retail sales rose 0.5 percent [...]
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An Eye On Oil
Oil futures jumped 2.8% on Tuesday, to $70.01 a barrel. That is the highest settlement price we have seen since November 4th. The latest jump came after the American Petroleum Institute reported a bigger than expected drop in stockpiles last week. A falling dollar contributed to oil’s rise and pushed raw materials prices higher across [...]
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Most Americans Not Prepared for Retirement
The recession has not prompted many people to change their behavior and start saving more for retirement, according to a new survey by Charles Schwab. The quarterly survey found that many Americans are neither financially nor emotionally ready for retirement, even as they approach their retirement years. Almost four in 10 Americans are not currently [...]
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Exactly What is a Bond?