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Category: Investing

Retirement Income in Bull Markets, Bear Markets & Flat Markets

Retirement Income in Bull Markets, Bear Markets & Flat Markets

I live in a bedroom community of Pittsburgh and there are two primary routes to get to the grocery store. Back roads and the highway. During perfect conditions, the backroads take about twelve minutes and the highway takes about nine or ten minutes. I always take the backroads and my wife would choose the highway most of the time. My logic is that in virtually all conditions, the backroads take 12 minutes. The highway, while faster during optimal times, could…

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When It’s Smart to Pay Capital Gains Taxes

When It’s Smart to Pay Capital Gains Taxes

Imagine for a moment that you are the coach of a Major League Baseball team and you’ve successfully coached your team to the World Series. You’re about to start the 9th inning of Game 7 and your team is up 3-1. You are just three outs away from being crowned World Champions. A life-changing opportunity for players and coaches alike. But before the 9th inning begins, you visit the opposing team’s dugout and ask their coach if they’d like to…

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Retiring at Market Highs

Retiring at Market Highs

As we approach new all-time market highs, one fear I routinely hear is a concern over retiring at market highs. It makes sense given that sequence of returns risk is so prevalent early in retirement. If you experience a market meltdown during your first few years in retirement, that’s obviously not a good thing and most certainly not enjoyable. It’s the primary reason I advocate for pairing dividend growth investing with a bucket allocation strategy in an effort to stem…

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What’s Really Going on in the Stock Market?

What’s Really Going on in the Stock Market?

I’m generally not big on posting articles about “What’s going on in the market?” But today, August 13th, marks the 40th anniversary of the infamous “The Death of Equities” article by business week. It came out, originally, just in time to usher in one of the great bull markets in our country’s history. I’ll get to some data on the current market environment, but before I do there are some amazing (surprising for some people?) observations about what’s happened since…

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There Are No Facts About the Future

There Are No Facts About the Future

As the market has started to meltdown this week and the presidential debates are heating up, there are plenty of discussions about what might happen to the economy if Trump’s tariffs continue or if Senator Warren or Sanders were to win the presidency. The latter bears a striking resemblance to the same predictions about how things might turn out when Trump shocked the world. Politics as usual. In any election cycle (which, to my dismay, never seems to go away),…

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How to Invest For a 30+ Year Retirement

How to Invest For a 30+ Year Retirement

A couple of weeks back, I had the pleasure of chatting with Taylor Schulte, CFP® on his retirement podcast, “Stay Wealthy.” Taylor is a highly respected retirement expert, so naturally, I was excited to have a public chat about a topic we are both passionate about. On the podcast, we discuss my post, A Portfolio Strategy for 30-Year Retirements, to include the following topics: Why living longer should be a goal to strive for and why you’ll probably live much…

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The Market Went ___ On ___.

The Market Went ___ On ___.

Lunacy. I’ve been watching various headlines for the direct purpose of pointing out the sheer craziness of headline investing. Here are five headlines from the past couple of weeks. “Stocks finish lower. Global growth worries return. Here’s what happened in markets today.” “The Dow Loses 33 Points Because the Market Is Getting Pulled in Different Directions” “Stock market gains after Fed removes ‘patient’ from policy statement.” “The Dow Jones Industrial Average just hit a new high, it’s time to talk…

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Why I Prefer Dividend Income Over Total Return in Retirement

Why I Prefer Dividend Income Over Total Return in Retirement

The one constructive response I received on the article, A Portfolio Strategy for 30-Year Retirements, was the preference for total return versus dividend income. If you haven’t read it, I’d encourage you to do so now as what follows will make much more sense. Before we dive in, let’s first define total return investing. Total return investing is the idea that there is no preference for investment gains, whether via dividends or growth of underlying capital. The thought process here…

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Selling the Sizzle: Risk-Adjusted Returns

Selling the Sizzle: Risk-Adjusted Returns

Jerry Seinfeld is one of my two favorite comedians. (Mitch Hedberg is the other in case you’re wondering.) He has a great bit about dry cleaning where he says, The whole problem with dry cleaning is that we all believe that this is actually possible. They’re cleaning our clothes, but they’re not getting anything wet. It’s all dry. I know there’s got to be some liquids back there, some fluids that they’re using. There’s no such thing as “dry” cleaning….

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A Portfolio Strategy For 30-Year Retirements

A Portfolio Strategy For 30-Year Retirements

PLEASE NOTE: This is a long post, but I passionately believe that if retirees have any chance of getting things right, they must properly understand all the underlying assumptions they are making in their retirement planning decision process. And because I view the subject(s) of this particular article to be so important, I wanted all the thoughts in one place instead of being spread amongst three or four individual posts – especially since these issues are inseparable in nature. If…

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