Model Portfolios

Investing

Should Investors Over Age 50 Own Stocks?

Posted August 31, 2009 5:54 PM

Stock market performance in the most recent bear market was largely a train wreck that left many older investors wondering what to do. Should they purge their investment portfolios of stocks altogether or risk running out of money? Between October 2007 and March 2009, the Standard & Poor's 500 lost 55 percent of its value. An investor with a $1 million exposure to an S&P 500 fund would Read more...

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November 20

Life Is Unfair. Deal With It.

by Paul B. Brown @ 4:44 pm. Filed under financial crisis, investment, retirement savings

Over the weekend, friends were complaining about the fact that the worth of their retirement accounts have plummeted this year. I told them the following: In a perfect world, the value of our retirement savings would climb every single year from the time we put the money in, until we decided to finally use the funds to pay for the retirement of our dreams. We would never suffer a financial crisis caused by divorce or illness. And we never find ourselves suddenly unemployed or the victim of the plummeting stock market like the one we experienced in 2008. More…

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Retirement

Managing Retirement Savings in Volatile Markets

Posted October 22, 2008 10:37 AM

What should you do about big losses in retirement accounts?The typical 401(k) account balance fell between 19 percent and 25 percent this year through mid-October, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute.Conventional wisdom suggests that you stay the course and not sell out of downtrodden investments, only to see them rebound when the economy recovers.Selling out at the lows may not Read more...

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October 14

We Might as Well Share in the Rewards

by Paul B. Brown @ 6:13 am. Filed under Bailout, banks, investing, retirement savings, Wall Street

From today's Wall Street Journal: 'The U.S. government is expected to take stakes in nine of the nation's top financial institutions as part of a new plan to restore confidence to the battered U.S. banking system, a far-reaching effort that puts the government's guarantee behind the basic plumbing of financial markets." You can make the case, as I have, that the government should not be in the bailout business. (It simply isn't the way capitalism is supposed to work.) But, if taxpayers are going to be on the hook for guaranteeing loans to AIG and bailing out the banks, we might as well share in the upside. More…

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September 30

Maybe the 9% Approval Rating was Too High

by Paul B. Brown @ 7:12 am. Filed under congress, investment, retirement savings, Wall Street

On the morning after we all saw our retirement savings take a substantial hit, I only have one question: Is Congress' 9% approval rating too high? If we lined up 11 members of the ThirdAge community today, do you really think that we could find one person who would say they are doing a good job handling the financial crisis? More…

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Retirement

Retirement Rules Catch Many Unaware

Posted September 11, 2008 9:20 PM

DES MOINES, Iowa - There's some sentiment that a government rule that forces retirees to withdraw money from their IRA and 401(k) accounts when they turn 70 1/2 may need to be changed. That's because people are living longer and need to keep as much of their retirement money for as long as possible, said several financial advisers and a leader of the Senate Finance Committee. The required Read more...

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Retirement

10 Ways to Spot 401(k) Abuse

Posted August 28, 2008 11:54 AM

More Americans than ever rely on 401(k) plans to save for retirement. And to say the plans are increasingly popular is an understatement. Assets in 401(k) plans surpassed $3 trillion at the end of 2007, according to the Investment Company Institute, a national association of U.S. investment companies. Yet when we get our 401(k) statements, most of us glance at the balance and toss the Read more...

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Retirement

Congratulations! You're Retired. Now What?

Posted July 29, 2008 2:24 PM

For those who don't have a traditional pension they can count on, turning retirement savings into income can be a tricky proposition. The financial industry has come up with several strategies and products to help the average Jane and Joe produce income from savings pooled in 401(k)s, IRAs or other retirement vehicles. You can use annuities, which are mutual funds designed to produce Read more...

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Retirement

70 is the New 65

By Paul B. Brown

Posted July 8, 2008 1:24 PM

When people—especially baby boomers—start to get serious about retirement planning, they are often shocked and dismayed because they haven’t saved enough money. They realize the $50,000 the typical baby boomer has saved by age 50 won’t go very far once they stop work. Based on a retirement age of 65, they won’t have enough money to live comfortably. But who said you have to retire at Read more...

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