I was recently asked if investors should trust their financial advisors. And my short answer, you may be surprised to hear, was no. Your financial advisor should not also have custody of your investments.
Every year many of us make New Year’s resolutions and then can’t follow through because we claim we’re too busy.
Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus on Christmas Day. But for too many of us, it’s the season that unravels the careful financial planning of the previous 11 months. So this year, instead of trading your financial goals for a mountain of gifts and debt, take a moment to contemplate how a spiritual perspective can help you put your wealth in perspective.
Philip Zimbardo’s latest book, “The Time Paradox” suggests that understanding your own time perspective may help you unlock the secrets of financial freedom. In other words, how we think determines who we are and what we do.
David Marotta discusses how our time perspective influences our lives.
A shortage of people are buying real estate and we’ve passed a one-per-customer tax incentive law.
There is always a day of reckoning when people use debt to leverage their investments.
How you “title” the property you own is a lot more important than you might think. Failure to title your assets properly could undo the best will and trust planning that money can buy.
Fee-Only financial advisors will be in cities across the country to conduct free advice events.
This year, give your family the gift of financial peace of mind. Celebrate the season simply.
David Marotta discusses celebrating Christmas.
For charity to be a virtue, it must be freely given from your own resources.
Free markets are under assault in America. We have seen much hyperbole and slander in these past two years of political polarization. But the idea of capitalism and free markets has received more negative campaigning and vicious attack than both candidates combined.
But if you were invested in a balanced portfolio, you did not lose this past decade.
Privatization eliminates benefits for those who can do better with 5% of their payroll taxes than the government does with the entire 12.4%.
All this toil to maintain an average benefit of about $12,000 a year!
David Marotta discusses how Social Security could offer more benefit for less cost.
When a hurricane threatens, making a plan and gearing up for emergencies is imperative. Economic emergencies happen too, but it may be less obvious how to prepare. Here are seven steps you should take to weather any financial storm.
Regulation and centralized planning have caused financial instability and failing institutions. If this is the root cause, then many of the proposed solutions will only make matters worse.
Eastern European countries have been struggling out of the darkness of communist rule into the light of free markets.
Free markets thrive when a country guarantees property rights and the rule of law. China possesses neither of these.
David Marotta discusses how politics affect us.
“The fence itself grazed through the field.”
Russia never really tried free markets. Rated at just below 50% free, Russia is considered repressed.
One area where Brazil has excelled is making headway toward energy independence.
David Marotta discusses financial planning for a college education.
To process financial information, our minds often attempt unwise shortcuts. By understanding behavioral finance, we can limit the information we use and keep our decisions balanced and on track.
The benefits of investing in the countries with the most economic freedom.
One of the early studies on herd mentality was the Solomon Asch experiments in the 1950s. The setup was a mock vision test. In reality, all but one of the participants were actors, who after a few correct answers started agreeing unanimously on a wrong choice.
Think of confidence as a continuum: Lack of confidence is paralyzing, self-confidence is good, but overconfidence is deadly. Successful investors seek to find a balance between rashness and timidity. Understanding the psychology that causes us to act overconfidently will help you avoid it.
The essence of successful financial planning is using your money to meet your life’s goals. Curiously our minds tend to fall prey to the fallacy that behavioral finance calls “mental accounting”.
Our first reaction to a complicated situation, usually instinctive, often does not serve our best interests. One heuristic that the brain uses to solve complex evaluations is to make an initial guess and then adjust from that point. This mental process is called “anchoring.”
You can both diversify for safety and boost your returns by adding international investments to your portfolio.
A year ago when the markets were all setting new highs, people were asking what they should do with their retirement portfolio. I answered, “Rebalance.” Now that the market is setting new lows, I get the same question, and my response hasn’t changed.
You can hedge your assets against underreported inflation and protect your retirement goals.
Inflation at this rate causes serious harm to our nation’s economy and its citizens.
Officially, inflation today is calculated about 4%. Unofficially, it is over 7%.
David Marotta discusses retirement and how to avoid several common pitfalls in planning for the last 30 years of your life.
Certain assumptions such as maximum safe withdrawal rate are critical in order not to compromise a long and successful retirement.
Eight exceptions to the age 59.5 rule allow for penalty-free withdrawals.
You can’t spend money apart from your lifestyle because that’s the definition of lifestyle.
Tax rebate stimulus checks are a cheap and inefficient gimmick.
How to structure your finances to love and respect your spouse.
The subprime mortgage meltdown has cost the world 15% of its market capitalization, about $9 trillion. The primary culprit who caused all of this financial loss, pain and suffering is not the mortgage companies.
Systemic problems in your portfolio will continue even after the markets rebound.
If the federal tax cuts expire, we will have to work an extra week for the government.
A $360,000 investment can remove over $2 million from their taxable estate, savings $900,706 in estate taxes.
It used to be that becoming a millionaire was regarded as a huge achievement. In today’s dollars, however, it is fairly trivial. The new rich is over $5 million.
Investors are fickle. Investing should not be. When your investments go down, even slightly, you may be tempted to make poor choices.
Gold may glitter, but it is still better to own the mine.