Category: Investment strategy

How To Have A Comfortable Retirement

No one plans to live in poverty in retirement. But one of the biggest problems for the majority of current workers is that they don’t plan … period. So what can we do to live better in retirement?

  •  Save, save, save and start early. The biggest tool that anyone has is time. Time is the magic that makes compound interest a miracle.  There is no substitute for starting early, and that means as soon as you leave school and begin work. Those who begin saving in their 20s saving $50 a month will end up with more money that those who started in their 40s.
  • Don’t retire early. People are living longer than ever before. Unless you are already rich, retiring early has at least three pernicious effects. First, your income stops and you begin drawing down your savings. Second, your pension and social security payments are much lower than if you wait. Third, you will spend more time as a retiree, forcing you to reduce spending to stretch your savings dollars.
  • After you retire from your main job and if you are physically able, find a paying job that will supplement your other income sources.
  • Find a way to cut costs. One of the best ways to reduce the cost of living during retirement is to be out of debt and that includes mortgage debt. It also pays, once you are empty nesters, to downsize the home. This has the effect of reducing taxes, utility and maintenance costs.

And once you are retired, get a copy of my book, Before I Go, so that you will be ready for the next stage on your journey.

What’s a "Bubble?"

The word “bubble” has been thrown around a great deal with the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) at 16,000, the S&P 500 at 1800, and the Nasdaq Comp above 4000.  The term “bubble” is a scare word that makes people think of a repeat of the Tech Crash of 2000 or the real estate bubble that led to the financial crisis of 2008.

Cluifford Asness, whose firm manages $80 billion has a pet peeve and one of them is the loose use of the term “bubble.”

“The word “bubble,” even if you are not an efficient market fan (if you are, it should never be uttered outside the tub), is very overused. I stake out a middle ground between pure efficient markets, where the word is verboten, and the common overuse of the word that is my peeve. Whether a particular instance is a bubble will never be objective; we will always have disagreement ex ante and even ex post. But to have content, the term bubble should indicate a price that no reasonable future outcome can justify. I believe that tech stocks in early 2000 fit this description. I don’t think there were assumptions — short of them owning the GDP of the Earth — that justified their valuations. However, in the wake of 1999-2000 and 2007-20008, and with the prevalence of the use of the word “bubble” to describe these two instances, we have dumbed the word down and now use it too much. An asset or a security is often declared to be in a bubble when it is more accurate to describe it as “expensive” or possessing a “lower than normal expected return.” The descriptions “lower than normal expected return” and “bubble” are not the same thing.

Bloomberg columnist Barry Ritholtz comments:

“It would only take a small marginal improvement in the economy, or a small uptick in hiring, or heaven help us, even a modest increase in wages to increase revenues and drive profits significantly higher,”he current market valuations do not, in my opinion, have the characteristics of a “bubble.” “

Whether stocks, bonds or commodities are fairly valued, undervalued or overvalued will become apparent over time.   In the meantime, unless you are being paid to opine, it’s best to realize that fortune-telling is not the way to manage your portfolio.  Creating an all-weather portfolio with the asset allocation that will allow you to face any reasonable future is the best strategy.

 

Income Investing: Investors No Longer Taking a ‘Fixed’ Approach

While interest rates on bonds have risen slightly from the absolute bottoms, investors looking for income are still not satisfied with the rates that they can get today.  Adding to their concerns is the expectation that when the federal reserve slows “quantitive easing” interest rates will rise to significantly higher levels.  And that means that the bond they buy today will probably go down in value.

As a result, income investors are actually looking at dividend paying stocks to provide the cash flow that they need.  One other advantage of this strategy is that many companies have been raising their dividends regularly, something that bonds don’t do.

Sudden Wealth Syndrome

The person who suddenly comes into wealth needs much more than financial planning.  Lottery winners, those who inherit wealth, people who sell a family business often fall prey to the “sudden wealth syndrome” and frequently lose what they have gained.  Sudden wealth recipients’ immediate concerns may have little to do with financial planning or investment strategies. Even people who know they’ll be getting money at some point—such as an inheritance—may significantly underestimate the amount. Failing to address the psychological ramifications of sudden wealth can lead to financial ruin.  The assistance that these people need is often more psychological than financial, at least at the beginning .

Newfound wealth is usually a very emotional thing and people usually make terrible financial decisions when they are emotional.  People who win the lottery or inherit wealth need to give a lot of thought and decide what they want their lives to look like.  Some of the dangers that these people face include:

  • Thinking they have more money than they do.   No matter how much it seems at the beginning it’s always a finite amount and can run out if not properly handled.
  • Windfalls are viewed very differently than money they that’s been worked for and therefore is often spent irrationally.  No one really “needs” a yacht.
  • Many immediately quit their jobs.  The problem then becomes: what are they going to do with their time.  This can lead to a “honeymoon period” where they go on spending sprees and find their lives empty of meaning.
  • They become suspicious, including suspecting their advisors of being more interested in their money than them.
  • They are barraged with business propositions, requests for loans and the like.   This is where a trusted advisor can help.  I recently had a portfolio review with one of my clients who is a doctor.  Physicians and surgeons are constantly barraged with business and investment proposals because they are viewed as wealthy.  I offered to review these proposals for him and tell him which ones were legitimate, reasonable and appropriate for him.  An advisor should be willing and able to do the same thing for those who have acquired sudden wealth.

Advice to those who achieve sudden wealth.  Don’t do anything sudden.

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