Category: Asset Allocation

Okay, perhaps not you personally but in a recent study by the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) and the Investment Company Institute (ICI) it was shown that the average employee has approximately 11% of their portfolio in the stock of their employer. This is a fall from 19% back in 1996 but it’s still waaaaay…

My retirement is broken up into four accounts, the first is a SEP-IRA, the second is a Roth IRA, the third is a Rollover IRA (traditional IRA whose originated funds came from a former 401k), and a 401k. Within the four, I’m basically in a mix of mutual funds with the exception of the Roth…

The recent stock market peaks and valleys have probably given your heart a bit of workout lately huh? This is probably especially true, the heart workout part that is, if you’re close to retirement and underscores the reason why you should try to shift your investments to less volatile vehicles as you get closer to…

I’ve been reading Ask Carrie, a blog over at Charles Schwab, and there was a recent post that caught my eye where a reader was concerned about geopolitical events such as the continued Iraq war, Iran troubles, and North Korean issues; and how they could adjust their portfolio or adjust their retirement planning to help…

I was surprised to read in a recent article from the Motley Fool that the the actual appreciation rate of residential real estate over a long period of time, in their study they looked at two time periods, barely beat Treasury bonds in one case and lost to T-bills in the second case. In the…

Many people have believed that cash, as an investment, is safe but it isn’t and it’s the subject of Walter Updegrave’s latest column in which he explains why cash (“invested” in traditionally safe vehicles) is risky. While Updegrave focuses on the opportunity cost aspect of it, how the money can be earning higher returns elsewhere,…

Do you know why the experts recommend that young investors should be aggressive while older investors should be more conservative? It comes down to the fact that in the long run the stock market, and investments in general, appreciate but in the short run they can be entirely random and extremely volatile, so if you…

If you have a choice, as many people do, of where to put your retirement assets, I recommend not investing it at all with your employer. Other places may recommend that you don’t put all of your retirement eggs in your employer’s basket, but I go one step further and say that you shouldn’t put…