When the Dow plunged over 1,000 points this morning (8/24/2015), two things should have become clear to the casual observer: 1. No matter what stock you were in, it got pummeled. Correlations for all stocks stand at around 80%. Home Depot (HD) and Microsoft (MSFT), despite being in different industries, both dropped 3.1%. 2. International…
It’s a fact: people have a hard time holding on to their wealth. In a Wall Street Journal article titled, “Lost Inheritance,” it was cited that 70% of wealthy families lose their wealth by the second generation, and 90% lose their wealth by the third generation. In another documentary by ESPN titled, “Broke,” some other…
I was asked the other day, “How many financial advisors are there in the US, and what percentage of them have the CFA designation?” It was a good question that I didn’t know the answer to, so I started looking around the web and found this from the Bureau of Labor Statistics: Number of Personal…
According to the Labor Department (source), in 1979, 74 percent of workers participating in retirement plans had a defined benefit pension that would provide a fixed income stream. A defined benefit plan is one where the employer guarantees that your plan has a minimum value upon your retirement. This removes the worry that you’ll have an…
A client asked me recently what I thought about REITs now that interest rates were on the verge of rising. It’s a good concern since traditionally, people look at REITs as extensions of the bond market: they can have long lease terms that can resemble bond cash flows, so it follows that higher interest rates…