When it comes to calculating your “magic number” for retirement (how much you need to save in order to retire comfortably), various formulas have been suggested (Fidelity, for example, recommends that you save the equivalent of 10 times your final salary). The author of today’s article, however, sees this approach as “fatally flawed” and recommends using a “magic dividend number”…
Retirement is a time for “Steady-Eddie” dividend-paying stocks and not a time for growth stocks (and the volatility that is inextricably linked to them). Such is the common wisdom. However, the authors of today’s article believe that not all growth stocks should be painted with the same retirement-incompatible brush – and they proceed to highlight two growth stocks (which also…
Whether you are still young and have high risk tolerance, are middle-aged with moderate risk tolerance, or are at retirement and need reliable income, today’s article seeks to answer the following question: “How can you buy ETFs to build a comprehensive, long-term retirement portfolio?” For each of the aforementioned life stages, the author outlines the types of core – and…
If you even have a retirement plan at all you are undoubtedly ahead of most Americans. Still, even if you have taken this important step, the question needs to be asked: is the retirement plan you have drafted viable? The author of today’s article outlines how pre-retirees can go about assessing the adequacy of their savings rate – and how…
The author of today’s article used to joke that he had “the most depressing job in America”: writing about issues surrounding retirement. In fact, he argues that no progress has been made over the last two decades in improving the retirement picture for Americans, despite a variety of new laws and financial products introduced over this period that sought to…
The market’s sequence of returns matters – having weaker returns come early in one’s life cycle (when the amount invested is smaller) and stronger returns come later in one’s life cycle (when the amount invested is much larger) puts one in a much better position going into retirement than the reverse scenario. Unfortunately, while the sequence of returns matters a…
Dipping into your 401(k), taking out a loan, or turning to high-interest credit card debt when life throws one of its unpleasant (and expensive) little surprises your way has its cost. As the author of today’s article notes, “any of these steps will set you back in growing your net worth and hinder your ability to reach your goals.” Thus…
There are many actions (and inactions) that can wreck retirement plans. As such, while the author of today’s article acknowledges that the $1 million figure frequently cited as how much one needs to amass for a comfortable retirement may be arbitrary, he stresses that “what is not arbitrary is it takes discipline and it requires avoiding mistakes and pitfalls to…
Despite renewed strength in – and interest in owning – gold, the author of today’s article believes that few people have a good understanding of why the precious metal behaves the way it does – and thus what role (if any) it has to play in an investment portfolio. As such, he proceeds to examine the case for and against…
With the average life expectancy in the U.S. approaching 80 years, the long-advised strategy of shifting away from riskier (but higher-returning) assets like stocks and towards safer (but lower-returning) assets like bonds as you near retirement is not without its own risk: the risk of running out of money. The trick to navigating this risk/reward quandary, according to today’s article,…