After being delayed, the Department of Labor’s fiduciary rule – which requires that all financial professionals put the best interests of their clients first when it comes to retirement accounts – is set to be implemented (for now) on June 9. But beyond eliminating conflicts of interest, will the rule make it less expensive to invest for retirement? Today’s article…
“There are many fees that eat into your retirement nest egg,” notes the author of today’s article. As such, he proceeds to outline several tips to help minimize just how big of a bite fees can take out of your retirement savings. To find out what these tips are – including why he recommends that you should require that all…
According to the Bipartisan Policy Center, there are approximately 25 million orphaned retirement accounts – i.e. accounts left with former employers – in existence today. If one (or more) of these accounts belongs to you, what’s the best way of handling these abandoned funds? Today’s article looks at the pros and cons of three options – keeping the 401(k) with…
For diligent retirement savers, the author of today’s article doesn’t see investing in large-cap stocks – with their maturity and predictable cash flows – as being a bad plan. However, for the large segment of Americans who are either behind on saving for retirement (or have no retirement savings at all), he points to small-cap stocks as being “the best…
Retirement is a time for spending. However, as today’s article highlights, it appears that affluent American retirees are not doing so. Rather, despite having accumulated an unprecedented amount in assets, studies find they are hoarding money. And while some may be doing so for rational reasons (e.g. wanting to leave a sizable inheritance), the primary motivator appears to be an…
Of all the stocks currently listed on the U.S. market, is a simple basket of just five of them all that is needed for a lucrative retirement? Yes… or at least that is the case the author of today’s article makes. But doesn’t holding just five stocks mean that a portfolio would not be sufficiently diversified? To the contrary, the…
High fees are eroding Americans’ retirement savings to such an extent that one study found that, for some, the deleterious effects of fees actually outweigh the benefits of using a retirement account in the first place. And, to make matters worse, half of Americans don’t even know how much they are paying in fees! Today’s article depicts how even the…
There was a time when a million dollars would have seemed like a mythical amount of money. Today, however, despite the fact that many retirement savers have arbitrarily set $1 million as the amount they need to amass for a secure retirement, many financial advisors caution that a nest egg of this size could still leave people short in retirement.…
Will they or won’t they…destroy the stock market? One theory making the rounds in the investment world is that, as a result of a combination of a mass movement from stocks to bonds and taking required minimum distributions, baby boomers will be huge stock sellers in the coming years, with devastating implications for the stock market. But how likely is…
If your vision for your retirement includes starting a business, one financing option is a ROBS – a Rollover as Business Startup, where funds from eligible retirement accounts are rolled over and invested into a new business (or used to buy an existing business). One major advantage of a ROBS? There’s no need to get loan approval. But one critical…