To many people, retirement is the Holy Grail of financial planning.  Clients almost always list retirement as their top financial planning objective.    This makes retirement planning central to what I do for a living, yet I don’t spend much time thinking about actual retirement.  I’ve been focused more on the process of helping people grow and protect their wealth in order to have more choices in the future.  Prior to writing this art…

It’s not supposed to be over until it’s over - but since most of the results are already in – I guess it’s over.   Hedge fund manager, Ted Seides of Protégé Partners, has conceded defeat before the “official” end of his public wager with billionaire investor Warren Buffett.    About ten years ago, Mr. Buffett, challenged any hedge fund manager to a head-to-head competition against a passive stock index fund over a ten-year period. &nb…

Tax time is sure to bring out certain things, such as confusion, anxiety, and shoe boxes of records and receipts to name a few.  It also invariably invokes financial articles, providing advise such as “last minute tax saving tips” that are either irrelevant to the average reader or not really helpful.    Susannah Snider, of US News & World Report, took a refreshing twist in her piece, Making Sense of 10 Confusing Tax Phrases, where she asked…

The term Animal Spirits seems to have replaced The New Normal as the description of choice for economic commentators.     The new normal describes an indefinite state of slow economic growth, while animal spirits represents a more positive outlook that is underpinning the surge in stock prices since the November election.    While intriguing language, neither term helps much with understanding or navigating the financial markets.&…

Are you a true believer? If you are not, it’s okay. Most people who invest in index funds do not fully understand them. You can still be a successful investor, but it would be even better if you were a true believer. The word is getting out. Money is flowing from active mutual funds to passive index funds at an astounding rate. It’s no coincidence that Vanguard, the pioneer of index funds, has taken over the top spot as the largest fund company. Its S&P 500 in…