Retirement

Here’s a thought: retirement doesn’t mean the end. It doesn’t mean an end of self-importance or purpose, it just means a new chapter—a paradigm shift of what life is beyond long days and meetings and bosses. Unless you own your own business, and even then, you are not your business.

If you’ve been listening to the financial media of late you have no doubt heard some of the so-called experts prognosticating on the prospect of the next big bear market. Unquestionably, the stock market is at another crossroads, and its 7 percent increase year-to-date belies the concerns that most people have over the global economy.

For as long as there has been stock markets, investors have intuitively known that expectations of returns come with commensurate expectations of risk; the higher return one expects the greater the risk one assumes in order to achieve it.

Caught in an extraordinary convergence of unhinged stock market volatility and historically low interest rates on savings, many people are rethinking their plans and their vision for the future, especially as they consider the prospect of having to stretch their retirement income over 25 or 30 years.  A study conducted in 2015 by the Employee Benefit Research Institute found workers of all

Although the stock prices are trading near their all-time highs, it hasn’t exactly been a joy ride for retirees who are counting on their retirement plans for a lifetime of income.  The type of unruly market action that we have seen over the last few months always unleashes a flurry of “expert” commentary that seems to be directed at those who are most vulnerable to flash

Amidst the more obvious lingering effects of a sluggish economy, such as slow job growth, decreasing incomes, low interest rates and shaky consumer confidence, there lurks a more insidious threat which, thus far, has largely been ignored.

In the realm of financial planning, time is our most valuable asset.  It’s available to all of us, providing each individual with the same opportunity to optimize its value in building wealth. It’s the only resource we all have over which we have some degree of control.

It has only been since the Baby Boomer generation began to cross the retirement threshold that we’ve had to seriously confront the new challenge of our longevity.