Recovering from Portfolio Losses

Many baby boomers suffered severe losses in their portfolio of retirement investments. Now we want to know the best ways for recovering from those losses. These are a few strategies that have come to my attention. Some are conventional and passive. Others will take some work. All are worth considering. Read more

Retirement Income Planning and Your Financial Advisor

Many baby boomers plan for retirement by consulting a financial planner or advisor. A key topic in consultations with an advisor is whether your retirement income will last for as long as you need it to. The answer to this question requires a careful analysis of your assets so as to predict with some degree of accuracy if you will outlive your money. This must involve more than a back of the envelope calculation. Unfortunately, some financial advisors oversimplify their analysis of your retirement income. This produces an unrealistic outcome. Read more

Low Cost Investments for Your Portfolio

This post is a brief reminder about the need to understand and control investment costs in your retirement portfolio. Costs of investment include transactional costs (e.g., buying and selling commissions), maintenance costs (account and advisory fees), and fund expenses. Read more

All Weather, Lazy and Couch Potato Retirement Portfolios

I am a student of asset allocation strategies.  More particularly, I am interested in retirement portfolios that can perform well in all market conditions.  Sometimes these are called “all weather”, “set and forget”, “lazy man” or “couch potato” portfolios. Read more

Tools to Analyze Our Retirement Portfolio

I admit to being somewhat obsessive in trying to find ways to analyze the different investments in our retirement portfolio.  My particular interest is, of course, portfolio survival:  Will our retirement investments provide a steady and reliable income so that we will not outlive our money. Many other baby boomers are no doubt thinking carefully and worrying about this as well.
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