Retirement Meditation #15: Does the balanced fund belong in an investment lineup?
My parents’ families were small business owners, and my parents were incredibly fiscally conservative. My dad especially, a third-generation stone masonry and…
Dividend Income And Dogs Of The Dow Strategies Outperforming
With a little more than a fourth of the year behind investors, and in the face of rising interest rates, dividend paying stocks have been insulated from some…
A Near Record Low For Individual Investor Bullishness
This week's individual investor Sentiment Survey release by the American Association of Individual Investors shows the percentage of investors expressing…
Today's release of the NFIB Small Business Optimism Survey for March showed the index fell 2.4 points to 93.2. In the survey, 31% of small businesses cited…
The worst kept secret in the first quarter was the Federal Reserve embarking on a tighter monetary policy. The Fed increased the Fed Funds rate by 0.25% or 25…
Earlier this past week S&P Dow Jones Indices (.xls) reported dividend and buyback activity for the S&P 500 Index through the end of the 2021 calendar year and…
Retirement Meditation #14: Are target date funds the perfect solution for the employee?
Retirement Meditation #13 focused on target date funds through an employer’s lens. This week’s Meditation redirects that focus and throws the spotlight on the…
Retirement Meditation #13: Are target date funds the perfect solution for employers?
Retirement Meditation #12 addressed default investment options, including the age-based asset allocation fund—better known as the target date fund. Target date…
One factor likely having an outsized influence on the Federal Reserve’s interest policy is the current level of inflation. The latest reading on inflation…
Retirement Meditation #12: Does your plan offer the right default investment option?
Let’s face facts, not all retirement plan participants are engaged in their retirement investments. Some, even though they can and should, simply do not make…
Retirement Meditation #11: Can a retirement plan have too many investment options?
During my time as a Senior Investigator with the U.S. Department of Labor, I reviewed the 401(k) plan of an investment management firm that had 78 investment…
