A Lost Decade?

The last ten years or so have been widely referred to as the “lost decade.” In many ways this term does accurately reflect our economic and financial market struggles since the year 2000. We have experienced unthinkable terrorist attacks, painful stock market declines, ongoing wars in the Middle East, and the worst financial crisis since …

Market Watch – Time to Rebalance

Investor optimism has risen a bit lately and it is easy to see why. The world’s equity markets have rallied quite dramatically since October of last year. While such positive sentiment is by no means unanimous, optimism clearly is climbing. This is hardly a surprise given such strong gains over the last few months. Of …

Retirement Risks – Beware of Them All

What is risk? If you ask most investors, they would tell you that risk is the chance that an investment will go down in value. But this is only one type of risk – market risk. Investors face several other additional types of risk in retirement. These risks, if not addressed, can chip away at …

Five Tenets for Investing

As Yogi Berra taught us; “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” We are living through some tumultuous times. The world gorged on debt and times were good. Now we are paying the price for this excess and are in the midst of a painful worldwide de-leveraging process. Nobody knows how long this economic …

2012 – Will the Tug of War Continue?

I don’t believe we can think about what 2012 might hold for us without first reviewing what took place during 2011. It seems we have been caught in a tug of war of sorts between positive and negative forces over the last several months and it is likely that this tug of war is not …

Rethinking Retirement

It is no secret that the investment landscape has changed significantly over the last few years. We are witnessing a sea change to many of the traditional investing principals of years past. The financial markets are more dependent than ever on the coordinated actions of policymakers around the world. No longer can we totally rely …

Attractive Opportunities in Emerging Market Bonds

We are all too familiar with the economic headwinds facing the U.S. and Europe. The larger, more mature economies of the U.S. and Europe are being held back by low growth, high unemployment, housing downturns and massive deficits.  Most economists don’t see this changing much in the coming quarters. The consensus seems to be that the possibility …

Class in Back in Session: Did you learn from 2008?

Here we go again. Extreme market volatility has come back to the markets over this summer. Unfortunately, we have had to endure yet another nasty and rapid decline in the world’s stock markets. Fear and pessimism once again are dominating the headlines. With all of this going on, I believe that now is a good …

Financial Planning Week™ 2011

What to do now? Does the challenging economy and volatile markets have you searching for answers? Now more than ever, consumers should take the time to improve their financial knowledge in order to make better financial decisions. That is what Financial Planning Week™ is all about. The Financial Planning Association (FPA®) is excited to be …

The Rest of 2011 – Bad, Mediocre, Good or Great?

Put me in the mediocre camp … but hey that’s not bad! The summer months have been marked by renewed talk of a recession. We have seen a pull back in the equity markets and some disappointing job reports. The housing market has continued to struggle as well. The European debt crisis refuses to go …

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