If you’re like most investors I speak with, you’ve put in your time. You’re in retirement or well along the road to planning for it. You’ve made sacrifices. You’ve put the kids through college or have saved enough to do so, and you feel like you’re over the hump. That’s a great feeling. It’s what you imagined that first time you sent a check in to invest. The idea that someday you’d be able to enjoy it. It’s a special moment. For many others, that moment may never come. That’s because, from my vantage point at least, investment advisers don’t spend enough time understanding why investors do … [Read more...]
“Five Decades Later Writing to You from Old Town, Key West”-Dick Young
“Well, writing to you now, five decades later, from our outside kitchen/living space in the heart of Old Town, Key West, I can’t help but think how much water has gone under the bridge through the many decades,” wrote Dick Young to you in the June 2017 issue of Richard C. Young’s Intelligence Report. “But if you have been with me over the years, you are keenly aware that it is indeed the combination of dividends, compound interest, perspective and patience that frames the message I deliver to you month after month. I do not change course. You can count on it.” Dick Continues: My Decades … [Read more...]
Market Down 900 Points and Here’s what YOU Told Me
As the market fell by 900 points midday yesterday, here’s what you and I were talking about: You called to let me know your son and daughter-in-law are interested in becoming clients, and to expect a call. That call came within the hour. We’re setting up the accounts. You were working on new account paperwork, but you had a question about the transfer process and were emailing me a quick question, then it was off to golf. You emailed me income projections on a spreadsheet for us to review in our next call. You are sending me an account statement to transfer your 403b, and then … [Read more...]
Californians Desperate to Escape: Look for the Island Life
You can't enjoy life with wildfires, high taxes, crippling regulation, unchecked rioting in the streets, and a pandemic working through your overcrowded city. Yet, that's the situation many Californians face every day. That's why so many Golden Staters are looking to escape the city, and instead, live the island life. Many are looking to Hawaii as a refuge from California. Trevor Boyer of the Daily Mail reports "From January to June 2020, Californians have bought $587.6 million worth of Hawaii real estate, or 41 percent of the total from U.S. buyers." He writes: Beset by fire and a … [Read more...]
Why Vanguard is too Big: Part V: How You’re Being Forgotten
I’m not trying to be unfair to Vanguard, or other companies with airplane-hangar-sized call centers, but nowadays you tend to feel like a number. You feel like what’s more important to the big guys is telling you how many assets they have under management. It’s in the trillions. How does that help you? It doesn’t. It also doesn’t help when the phone rep you’re speaking with is either fresh out of college or is worth a fraction of what you’ve been able to save over a lifetime of work. There tends to be some value in working with someone who has actually made some money, don’t you think? It … [Read more...]
Why Vanguard is too Big: Part IV: Meet the Jabba the Hutt of Funds
When you spend hours on vanguard.com like I do, you realize how hard it is to get the information you’re looking for. Take for example the bloated Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund. The thing is a behemoth, with so much money stuffed into it, it’s a wonder it can even move the needle. Jabba the Hutt comes to mind—you deserve better. Not to tool on Jabba, but take a look at what you’re really getting yourself into. Consider for a moment the title—Total Stock Market—where you think you’re buying a diversified fund. Not necessarily the case. How can it be when ten stocks account for over a … [Read more...]
Vanguard Proving Why It’s Too Big, Yet Again
Just when you think Vanguard might see the light and get back to its roots, it shows once again why it has become too big and is just like any other money-sucking behemoth--like BlackRock. Vanguard has proven this with the introduction of its own ESG investments program. In my series “You Invest, They Win,” I prove that you are not necessarily front and center, as you most certainly should be when it comes to how your money is invested. This is especially true with the new, hot, investment flavor-of-the-month, ESG. What is an ESG? It’s a marketing tool hoping to get you to feel good about … [Read more...]
One Simple Way to Help Your Finances in Times Like These
You know how hard it is to talk about money. That’s why I want you to blame Your Survival Guy when you bring up the subject with your spouse. That’s why I’m here, to help you both beat inertia and take care of your financial well-being. One easy way to do this is to start by saying, this Survival Guy feels that simply discussing money will help get us to the retirement we deserve. Use me as the ice breaker: “He says…” Grant Donnelly, assistant professor of marketing at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, can back me up with research. He's quoted in the Wall Street Journal, … [Read more...]
Is Your Stock Portfolio Suffering from the Dunning Kruger Effect?
You could be suffering right now from the Dunning Kruger effect and not even know it. Worst of all, it may be affecting your stock portfolio's performance. If you are one of the recently arrived "Robinhood" investors and think you have cracked the market code, you may, in fact, be suffering from the Dunning Kruger effect. The syndrome is named after Justin Kruger and David Dunning, who outlined it in their 1999 paper in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. The authors introduced their paper by describing the effect: People tend to hold overly favorable views of their … [Read more...]
The Task of Investing for Your Retirement Security
Let’s run some numbers, shall we? If you’re making twenty-five grand working part-time, how much will you need to invest to match it with a three-percent draw rate? The answer is just over eight hundred thousand dollars. Puts some perspective on how much your time is worth doesn’t it? The more you want to draw, the more you'll need to save. My number one piece of advice for anyone considering retirement is simply this: don’t. You have incredible worth in times like these with interest rates nailed to the floor and assets inflated. The task of investing for retirement … [Read more...]
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