Morningstar, the well-known (and respected?) name in mutual fund research, has announced its nominations for U.S. fund managers of the year for 2016. They are as follows: If you’re a performance chaser make sure to write down these names and throw a bunch of money at them. If you’re an investor then this comment from [...]
Special Needs Trusts (“SNTs”) are a common estate planning tool used to improve the quality of life of individuals with special needs. When properly drafted they integrate with governmental benefits ensuring assets are used to supplement (rather than disqualify an individual for) governmental benefits. On December 13, 2016, President Obama signed the 21st Century Cures [...]
Advice from the SEC’s Office of Investor Education and Advocacy to help investors make better informed investment decisions and avoid common scams in 2017: Always check the background of an investment professional—it is easy and free. You can find details of an investment professional’s background and qualifications through the search tool on the SEC’s website [...]
Religion and politics are not to be discussed in polite company. We get it. But indexing? It seems few topics draw the ire of the zealots and ideologues. Indexing is but a tool. It’s neutral. It has its pros and cons. It has its place. But to blindly marry oneself to an ideology? We are [...]
The IRS has issued the 2017 optional standard mileage rates for calculating the deductible costs of operating an automobile. Taxpayers always have the option of calculating the actual costs of using their vehicle rather than using the standard mileage rates. Effective Jan 1st the standard rates for a car, van, pickup truck or panel truck [...]
Legislation has been introduced to the House Ways and Means Social Security Subcommittee that among other things would: increase full retirement age at which workers could claim benefits after 12/31/29 raise for workers the “early retirement age” to 69 change how benefits are calculated to increase benefits for lower-income workers while slowing the growth of [...]
Retirement savers in Required Minimum Distribution status likely (or at least should) know some of the basics. Some retirement savers will have reached age 70 ½ this year and begin taking their first RMDs. A popular strategy involves aggregation. IRS rules state that an RMD should be calculated for each account separately. Then, where aggregation [...]
The sad reality is that financial planning for some means spending 6 hours finding the best Black Friday deal on an 85” TV vs. the 5 minutes spent understanding where they obtain financial advice. (That’s not true. I spent 10 minutes one rainy Sunday comparing my fund returns to the S&P 500 just like that [...]
The IRS recently announced mostly unchanged limits on retirement plans (i.e. 401(k)s) for 2017. Full details are available in Notice 2016-62. In a bit of "good" news, however, most of us won't have to increase funding of our retirements since we're dying sooner than previously expected.
Passive investing (i.e. indexing) has been beaten into our heads as the “best” method of achieving our investment goals. There’s a lot to like. Internal operating expenses are low and, generally, most actively-managed funds cannot beat or exceed their benchmark. So why not index? Here’s the inconvenient truth. Investors focusing solely on cost and return [...]