What Can We Learn from 2013’s Investment Predictions
It was the best year for the S&P 500 Index since 1997, with a total return in excess of 32%. The unusually strong performance of US stocks in 2013 was a welcome surprise but also a source of exasperation for … Continue reading
Investment Returns: What Should We Expect Going Forward?
As I write this article in mid December, the S&P 500 is wrapping up an incredibly fruitful 2013. The market index has now been up five years in a row and ten out of the last eleven years, granted with … Continue reading
Roth IRA Conversions Can Lower Your Tax Rate
Roth IRA conversions – converting money from pre-tax IRAs or 401(k)s to tax-free Roth IRAs – have been a hot topic especially among high-income taxpayers since the income limitations on conversions were lifted in 2010. Converting can now be done … Continue reading
Emerging Markets and Kenny Rogers’ “The Gambler”
Many investors fell for emerging markets in recent years when they delivered sizeable returns. More recently, the associated risk has reasserted itself and the infatuation has faded. To paraphrase Kenny Rogers, “You got to know when to hold ’em, fold … Continue reading
Change to Money Market Fund in Client Accounts
We will be changing the money market fund used in client accounts to a new tiered-rate structure fund, based on the brokerage account value–not just the money fund value. The larger your account, the larger the credited yield. For example, … Continue reading
Economics Nobel Goes To Efficient Market Champion
“Stock prices reflect all available information.” This simple, yet profound concept spawned in the 1960s continued to evolve into more sophisticated asset pricing theories and has won Eugene F. Fama, “Father of Modern Finance,” the 2013 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in … Continue reading
Estate Planning: Are Credit Shelter Trusts Obsolete?
One of the more interesting debates in estate planning circles these days surrounds so-called credit shelter trusts – also known as A-B Trusts or marital and bypass trusts, respectively. These are trusts set up as a way to preserve the … Continue reading
Tax-Efficient Retirement Planning
Why would anybody pay taxes when they really don’t have to? This is a question that financial advisors are hearing from their retired clients, who are taking their living expenses out of taxable and tax-deferred accounts like IRAs. The whole … Continue reading
The Myth of the Rational Market
Current Harvard Business Review editorial director and former Fortune writer Justin Fox wrote an article in 2003 titled, “Is the Market Rational?” Much of the article focused on the intellectual rivalry between two Chicago professors—Eugene Fama and Richard Thaler—and Fox … Continue reading
First-Half Report Card: Net Gains and Diversification Blues
The recent turmoil in the investment markets might cause one to think that people have lost money this year in U.S. stocks. But in fact, most of the U.S. indices are sitting on double-digit gains, and the second quarter actually added … Continue reading
