Jeff Snell

Goldman Sachs Abandons Five of Six ‘Top Trade’ Calls for 2016 – Bloomberg Business

Markets

I’ve always been wary of group-think projections of the future. Man, did GS get this wrong. -Jeff

Goldman Sachs to clients: whoops. Just six weeks into 2016, the New York-based bank has abandoned five of six recommended top trades for the year.

The dollar versus a basket of euro and yen; yields on Italian bonds versus their German counterparts; U.S. inflation expectations: Goldman Sachs Group Inc. was wrong on all that and more.

Read the entire article: Goldman Sachs Abandons Five of Six ‘Top Trade’ Calls for 2016 – Bloomberg Business

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What Assets Need to Be Listed for Probate? | LegalZoom

Financial Planning

Whether it is necessary to probate property can depend upon how title to the property is held, or whether there is a designated beneficiary.

An estate probate can be time-consuming and expensive, so arranging proper titling and beneficiary designations can be important.

What Is Probate? Probate is a legal process, whereby a court oversees the management of a deceased person’s property (or assets) to as

Read the entire article: What Assets Need to Be Listed for Probate? | LegalZoom

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3 Smart Ways to Maximize Your Roth IRA — The Motley Fool

Financial Planning

The Roth IRA is an amazing way to create tax-free retirement savings, and it’s something that, frankly, too few people take advantage of. Since it’s our mission to help people invest better, we asked three of our top retirement planning contributors to discuss smart ways you can maximize your Roth IRA. Depending on your situation, there’s a good chance

Read the entire article: 3 Smart Ways to Maximize Your Roth IRA — The Motley Fool

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3 mistakes to avoid in your first 3 years of retirement – MarketWatch

Financial Planning, Retirement

When you’ve finally arrived at the stoop of retirement, your next steps are often some of the trickiest. So much time and effort goes into reaching this milestone that what you do next is often ignored. Not intentionally, it just happens.

While the day-to-day of the next stage of your life may be unknown, what not to do is actually quite clear: Don’t invest too conservatively, don’t overspend and don’t neglect your health. Seems like common sense,

Read the entire article: 3 mistakes to avoid in your first 3 years of retirement – MarketWatch

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How to Find Previous 401(k) Accounts — The Motley Fool

Financial Planning, Retirement

There are several ways you can try to locate lost retirement money.

Using an employer-sponsored 401(k) plan can be a great way to save for retirement. The downside of 401(k)s, though, is that they are tied to a specific employer. As a result, when you switch jobs, your 401(k) money won’t automatically switch with you. Rather, in many cases, it will stay in your account. Below, we’ll run through

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What a great week: The history of the market is such that the future is brightest when stocks have plunged, and vice versa. I love bear markets because they raise the odds that future investment returns will be both positive and high.

Authored by Jeff, Behavioral Finance

What a great week: The history of the market is such that the future is brightest when stocks have plunged, and vice versa. I love bear markets because they raise the odds that future investment returns will be both positive and high. Read Post »

2015 was the hardest year to make money in 78 years

Markets

It’s been a really, really tough year for returns.

According to data from Societe Generale, the best-performing asset class of 2015 has been stocks, whose meager 2 percent total return (that is, including dividends) still surpasses those of long-term bonds, short-term Treasury bills and commodities. These minimal gains make 2015 the worst year for finding returns since 1937,

Read the entire article: 2015 was the hardest year to make money in 78 years

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The riskiest stock to own? Your employer’s

The riskiest stock to own? Your employer’s

Financial Planning, Retirement

The riskiest stock to own? Your employer’sShortly before Enron collapsed, 62% of employees’ 401(k) assets were invested in Enron. Above, Playboy magazine’s “Women of Enron.” Pension plan consultants, in the wake of a recent Supreme Court case, are telling retirement plan sponsors to reconsider their decision to offer company stock in a 401(k) plan.

You might want to do the very same: Revisit your decision to invest in your company’s stock in your employer-sponsored retirement plan.

Consider: “Defined-contribution plan participants frequently allocate too much of their total retirement portfolio to company stock,” Mark Teborek, a senior consulting analyst with Russell Investments in Chicago, wrote in a recent paper, “Revisiting Company Stock in Defined-contribution Plans.”

In fact, company stock represents on average a whopping 22.5% of defined-contribution assets among plans with more than 5,000 participants, according to the Plan Sponsor Council of America’s 57th Annual Survey, 2014.And that sort of outsize position in company stock might be considered […]

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What retirement crisis? It’s all good

What retirement crisis? It’s all good

Retirement

What retirement crisis? It’s all goodAlmost 70% of women said spending time with their grandchildren was a top retirement goal. Worried about your lack of retirement savings? Take solace from this: A majority of those who are already in retirement say it’s not as financially stressful as you may think, according to a new survey.

Fully 79% of retirees at all income levels said it’s easier than they thought to manage their savings in retirement and to “adapt their lifestyle based on their finances, if necessary,” according to a new survey of 12,000 preretirees and retirees aged 55 to 80, at all income levels (all are participants in a defined-contribution plan), conducted by Greenwald & Associates Inc. for Fidelity Investments, in collaboration with the Stanford Center on Longevity.

That’s not all. A whopping 85% of the retirees surveyed said retirement has been the most rewarding time of their lives — and that sentiment held up […]

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Average Americans May Never Retire, But That's Okay

Average Americans May Never Retire, But That’s Okay

Lifestyle, Retirement

Average Americans May Never Retire, But That\'s OkayMost people don’t set out to be average but at some point a new study or poll may lump them into that category. Unfortunately, for those classified as “average,” it is becoming increasingly difficult to feel secure about their potential to ever retire in the traditional sense.

Recently the Social Security Administration disclosed that the average American took home roughly $44,500 in net compensation. While that’s a 3.5% increase from 2013, when combined with other American averages, such as having less than $60,000 saved for retirement and predictions of spending upwards of $245,000 on healthcare during retirement, it’s easy to see why people are leery about reaching their golden years.

Some quick calculations confirm what many people are worried about. Using the Social Security Administration’s Quick Calculator Tool, the average American baby boomer age 62 and claiming benefits in 2015 would receive approximately $982 per month (less than $12,000 per year). […]

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Opinion: 7 ways to catch up if you’re behind on retirement savings

Opinion: 7 ways to catch up if you’re behind on retirement savings

Financial Planning, Retirement

Opinion: 7 ways to catch up if you’re behind on retirement savingsMost financial advisers agree: The simplest way to ensure you retire comfortably is to start saving early and let the power of compound interest work for you over time.

But what happens if you’re getting a late start on retirement, or financial troubles in middle age ate into your nest egg and now you’re playing catch-up?

The hard reality is that the vast majority of Americans get a late start on retirement planning. Consider a 2011 study from the Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis at The New School, which found a staggering 68% of Americans age 25-64 weren’t even participating in an employer-sponsored retirement plan like a 401(k).

More recently, a 2014 survey from finance website Bankrate.com found more than one-third of Americans don’t have a penny saved for retirement, including more than a quarter of those age 50 to 64.It’s also important to point out that many Americans grossly underestimate […]

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Reading Your Employee Handbook Can Pay Off In A Big Way Before Retirement

Reading Your Employee Handbook Can Pay Off In A Big Way Before Retirement

Financial Planning, Retirement

Reading Your Employee Handbook Can Pay Off In A Big Way Before RetirementThere are a myriad of things that people must consider before they retire. They contemplate whether they will have enough money or not; if they’ll out live those fund; and whether they have their savings allocated correctly to name a few.

But many people don’t think about flipping through their employee handbook before retirement and as a result may be leaving unclaimed time and money on the table.

I was recently talking to a family member at an event and learned he was retiring. After congratulating him, I asked when the big day was and what led to him making the decision.

He was very specific, including both a date and time.“January 31, at 4pm” he said.“Okay, you’ve really got the date and time nailed down don’t you,” I replied… adding, “Any significance to the 4pm?”He laughed, “Yes I was going to retire at the end of the year but after I […]

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The Cheapest Days To Fly And 12 More Holiday Travel Tips

The Cheapest Days To Fly And 12 More Holiday Travel Tips

Travel

The Cheapest Days To Fly And 12 More Holiday Travel TipsComplaints about stressful holiday travel are as old as St. Nick himself. Armed with these tips, you’ll be able to pack some holiday cheer (plus unwrapped presents) while en route to grandma’s.

1. Pick the right day to fly.

Busy airports, crazy-high fares, winter weather delays — are you sure you want to do this? The busiest (and most expensive) travel days of the year are around the holidays. You’ll save a lot of stress and a small stocking of cash by picking the right days to fly. We also have handy fare calendars to show you the cheapest day to fly on 1000 popular routes.

2. Rise and shine.

Don’t want to miss the carving of the turkey or the unwrapping of presents? Book the earliest flight you can. Sure, you’ve got to wake up early, but those first flights out are the least […]

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10 Dirty Little Secrets of Hotels

10 Dirty Little Secrets of Hotels

Travel

10 Dirty Little Secrets of HotelsOn average hotels do a much better job of satisfying customers than airlines—a conclusion supported by many surveys and ranking systems. But beating the airlines is a pretty low bar: No modern hotel accommodations are as downright uncomfortable and unpleasant as an economy class airline seat.

Even so, however, many hotels and hotel chains harbor some dirty little secrets they’d prefer to keep under wraps. Some are endemic while others are isolated. Here are a few to you’ll be glad to know.

Mandatory Fees

Mandatory “resort,” “concierge,” “housekeeping,” “porterage,” fees (along with other more esoteric varieties) are the hotel industry’s most active and widespread current scam. Hotel perpetrators slice off a part of the real price, post the remaining low-ball partial price as the basic room rate, give a plausible label to the sliced-off part, and add it back in before you buy. The practice started in Las Vegas and […]

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Why Inflation Is Lower Than You Think

Financial Planning, Markets

at-painter1Financial pundits routinely claim that inflation is much higher than the reported statistics. We hear, for example, that food prices have risen much faster than the roughly 1.5% increase in the consumer price index (CPI) over the past several years. Viewed over the longer term, however, inflation is far lower than reflected in the published data.

The reason for this anomaly is that the CPI doesn’t reflect the rapid advances in technology and the new products and services that have benefited everyone.

The implications are profound. For example, real GDP growth is greater than has been reported, and some claims of income inequality are misleading.

This theme was the focus of two recent presentations I attended. On October 18, the economist Woody Brock hosted a private gathering of investment professionals from Australia and New Zealand, organized by the Portfolio Construction Forum , at his home in Gloucester, Massachusetts. On October 22, Rick […]

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