Jay Vivian, former managing director of the IBM Retirement Funds, on how high fees can push your retirement target age years down the line. Continue reading →

Read enough about investing and eventually you run into this entertaining hockey metaphor: “Skate to where the puck is going, not to where it is.” This arrestingly simple piece of advice was supposedly uttered by hockey legend Wayne Gretzky (a claim thoroughly debunked). It lives on, on countless web sites, many dedicated to investing advice.… Continue reading →

If you’re on the hunt for an investment advisor, you are not alone. According to a 2012 Merrill Edge Report, nearly 45% of U.S. consumers work with some kind of financial professional when making investment choices — and that number is growing. It shouldn’t surprise anyone who has been paying attention. The stock market’s highs… Continue reading →

Every year, the well-meaning among us tackle a well-worn list of resolutions: Lose a few pounds, save bit more and so on. Often, resolutions are short-lived, to our dismay. It’s the same reason we fail to be successful at retirement investing: Old habits die hard. New habits are difficult to start. Yet habits tend to… Continue reading →

Traders use many measures to figure out when to buy or sell a given investment. Fundamentals, price-to-earnings ratios, even crazy things like Superbowl matchups. Yet you don’t have to know the inner workings of a company or predict the tectonic shifts ahead in the entire stock market. All you have to do is rebalance. Rebalancing… Continue reading →

Believe it or not, now may be the best time for small investors seeking to build a retirement — ever. Hyperbole? Maybe. But it might well turn out to be an understatement. Things might only get better for retirement investors. Consider the recent interview Jason Zweig at The Wall Street Journal had with James Cloonan,… Continue reading →

When it comes to investing, having money doesn’t buy women confidence in their ability to choose their investments wisely — or choose them at all. The Wells Fargo Affluent Women Retirement Survey polled 600 women with a median household income of $145,000 and $455,000 in investable assets. According to the survey, two out every five… Continue reading →

Do you expect to retire on the dot at 65? Sometime later? If you’re like an increasing number of American workers, the reality is likely to be a step-down process instead, according to a new study. University of Michigan researchers found that more than 15% of workers ages 60 to 62 are still earning salaries,… Continue reading →

We all rely on weather forecasts from time to time. It’s nice to know whether to toss an umbrella in the car or bring a jacket, just in case. But you know, deep down, that weather is to some degree about chance. The rain that’s clearly coming might fall five miles west of you, after… Continue reading →