Rates Won’t Skyrocket, So Ignore the Cassandra Chorus

My Comments: The last time interest rates started moving upward in a long term up trend was 1946. This lasted until 1981. Then they started moving down again. Now, 36 years later, they have once again started upward. The central bank, known as the FED, started moving them back up about a year ago. Granted, …

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When Will the Bull Market End?

My Comments: Be assured, I have no idea. But then, I don’t know what I’m going to have for lunch either. All I know is that I will have lunch and one of these days, this bull market will end. The trick is to understand that it will end, and if you’re not ready to …

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Investing Defensively

My Comments: I posted recently that we had better revise our investment expectations downward if we are planning to use our retirement savings to sustain our standard of living for the next twenty years or so. I attributed the likelihood of lower growth and investment return numbers on demographics and a rising interest rate environment. …

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This Is Not How A Bear Market Starts

My Comments: Today is Memorial Day, and the markets are closed in this country. It’s a day for us to instead remember those of us who gave their lives that we might continue with ours. Pray that fewer lives will be given in the years to come. The following comes from someone whose name I …

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Social Security Rules

My Comments: For millions of us, Social Security is critical for keeping our heads above water. If you are just now entering the transition to retirement, what you read here is basic information you need to be aware of. Wendy Connick / May 12, 2017 Calculating your Social Security benefits can get...complicated. It's not just …

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Asset Allocation Strategies That Work

My Comments: It’s not easy to make your money grow. And to make sure once it’s grown, it doesn’t disappear. A long time truth involves a principal called asset allocation. It means spreading your money across different styles and kinds of assets. Some will always work better than others, not just when going up, but …

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An Overvalued Stock Market?

My Comments: Dr. Doom here again. And boy, do I love this first chart. Many of my colleagues have been encouraging our clients to sit on the sidelines now for about two years or more. And we’ve been blasted because the DOW and the S&P just keeps going up. Unless you believe the world has …

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Stock Pickers vs Indexers

My Comments: Which approach is best for you? Not for me, but for YOU? For the past dozen years or more, my efforts on behalf of clients to use historically good fund managers has largely failed. And not just because of what happened in 2008-09. Yes, I still made my money as an advisor. But …

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Why Reducing Investment Losses Is So Important

My Comments: There are times to be cautious and there are times to throw caution to the winds. As you get older, caution is increasingly common. One way to solve your dilemma is to focus efforts on limiting what we call downside risk. That’s the opposite of upside risk for those of you just figuring …

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China Can’t Carry Global Economy if U.S. Stumbles

My Comments: Last Thursday and Friday I re-posted two articles about the US and China. This is related to those two. We as a nation have about $20T (that’s TRILLION) of debt. Sooner or later, we have to pay it back, and #45 has promised huge infrastructure and defense spending increases. Either we grow our …

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