For most companies, defined benefit pension plans are no longer in existence. Instead, they’ve rolled over some of that lost benefit to employees by increasing matching contributions on defined contribution plans, known mostly as 401(k) plans. Therefore, employees are learning that to retire comfortably without a pension plan benefit, they must max out their allowed 401(k) contributions – up to …
As an advisor, how involved are you with your client’s taxation issues, such as the actual management of their yearly tax-efficient investment trades or their retirement savings? If you are highly involved, you might be helping your clients make good investment-related decisions. However, you could also be setting them up for a double-taxation possibility. One of the highest risk areas …
“Retirement income planning” is lingo used in the financial industry to help clients determine their retirement possibilities. It is uttered by most advisors/brokers/insurance salesmen as a general offering, even when very few actually have the needed knowledge. Unfortunately, I’ve found that retirement income planning is rarely done properly across the broad industry, with more bad advice given than good. My …
All you have to do is Google the phrase “When is the best age to take Social Security?” and you’ll get endless advice from people all over on the perfect timing for taking Social Security. Even though not one single advice-giver knows anything about you! As a financial advisor who plans for people every day, it isn’t really that easy …
Reality is defined as the world or the state of things as they actually exist. With that being said, it somewhat amazes if not saddens me that the average investor has little to no clue about the reality of investment returns, risk or retirement needs. As a prime example, I happened upon the Natixis Asset Management Investor Survey conducted by …
Yes, it’s tax filing season again, already! And again for this year, we had some tax laws extended by Congress through 2016 or 2019, but some were actually made permanent. So for the context of this article, we’ll discuss only those changes affecting your individual clients. Summary of Individual Tax Provisions Made Permanent Charitable giving incentives: Taxpayers are …
The business world is complex, competitive and enormously taxing both from a monetary standpoint as well as from a managerial/emotional/physical standpoint for many business owners, especially small business owners, like many advisors’ clients. Therefore, in this article we’re going to specifically discuss one aspect of the monetary taxing side, which I believe is mostly unknown to the average business owner. …
This is the seventh and final in my series of blogs on whether a passive or active approach performs better in the mutual fund space. Our final article looks at the bond market, asking if there are indexing opportunities in all available bond asset classes. Well, the High Yield bonds space is definitely an interesting screening. Keep in mind I’m …
In my previous articles in this series on which mutual fund categories reward active or passive investing approaches, we’ve analyzed all the core equity categories, such as U.S. Large Cap, SMID Cap, and Foreign Large Cap. So I decided to jump to the fixed income side of the portfolio, as the emerging market equity screening generated no index funds from …
