REVISITING YOUR RISK TOLERANCE

I have been reading in my investor newsletters as well as several other authoritative sources that the markets, especially the US stock market are, at present, extremely overvalued. Some of these sources presented data that, they believe, clearly indicate we are in the final stages of a “market melt up,” similar to the the tech […]

Closing the Retail Investor Performance Gap

It is pretty well documented that the average retail stock market investor does not obtain the same long-term results as the broad market indexes. Here is a link to just one article titled, “Why Average Investors Earn Below Average Market Returns,” that discusses why retail stock investors do not replicate long term market returns. The […]

Return to the Abacos

Earlier this month we arrived back in the Bahamas. We keep our sailboat, Satisfaction, on land at Green Turtle Cay, another cay in the Abacos about 20 miles away from Hope Town. It takes 2 to 3 exhausting days to get our boat set up for living after the summer hurricane season. Fortunately, the Abaco […]

Updated Asset Allocation

Recently I got a question from a reader who was nearing retirement about fixed income ladders. Our back and forth correspondence inevitably got into asset allocation. Since I had recently fine-tuned our own asset allocation, I thought I might present here how our financial assets are currently positioned.

Market Volatility Making You nervous?

This post is just a reminder that the latest market volatility should not be making you nervous. If you have followed my “Retirement Planning” posts back in 2011, this latest stretch of market volatility should not be bothering you at all.

Recency Bias

Recency bias is not a term you often hear in the investment world, but I have read about it and seen other people experience this thought process when it comes to investing in the markets. I believe recency bias is one of the causes of why so many people sabotage their investments by “buying high […]

Equity Allocation Revisited

I have written often in this blog how one of the most important investment decisions you must make is selecting your appropriate equity allocation for your retirement portfolio. In my discussions on this topic, I have referenced a simple equity allocation guideline, “100 minus your age,” people can use that I first explained in this […]

Increasing the Safe Withdrawal Rate, Part II

In my last post I discussed how the most reliable way that a retiree can increase the Safe Withdrawal Rate (SWR) is to work longer, thereby decreasing the number of years a portfolio must support someone in retirement. In this post I will discuss the one situation where it is possible to have your cake […]

The Most Important Investment Concepts I Have Learned

As a follow up to my previous post on How a Bad Investment Experience Changed My Life, I will discuss in this post what I think are the most important investment concepts I have learned from my investing experience and research. I have talked about these concepts in previous posts but, to start off the […]

How a Young Investor Should Invest Retirement Funds Today

I recently had lunch with a former co-worker who asked me straight up how I thought she should be investing for retirement in the current investment environment. She is only in her early 30s but has been saving diligently for retirement and seems genuinely concerned about the current economic climate. So, I thought I would […]