J. Hagan & Warren Wealth Advisors
Protecting Your Wealth
Last weekend’s Intelligent Investor column looked at the extreme difficulties of disentangling skill from luck when you are evaluating investment performance. It’s the topic of an excellent new book by Michael Mauboussin and a subject of endless fascination – and frustration – to investors. We tend to think of the greatest investors – say, Peter [...]
The Internal Revenue Service isn’t usually a place that retirees turn for help with their financial planning. But it turns out the agency’s rules for required withdrawals from retirement accounts could provide a framework for retirees trying to calculate how much of their savings they can safely withdraw every year and minimize the risk of [...]
by Andrew Greer I am going to tell you something right now that will not surprise anyone reading this: We are going through incredibly uncertain times. We are in the middle of the most unpredictable economy we have experienced since the Great Depression. Over the past 12 years we’ve been through some pretty scary [...]
Investors’ 10 Most Common Behavioral Biases by Robert P. Seawright Barry Ritholz (of The Big Picture and a Sunday Business columnist at The Washington Post) recently contributed Investors’ 10 most common mistakes to The Washington Post Business Section quarterly investing section. It’s a commentary that he has been working on for a while — the ten topics are listed with links [...]
What is the last thing you were wrong about? If you can’t remember or have to think hard – don’t worry. That’s perfectly normal. Humans are conditioned to avoid being wrong. And even when we are wrong we will often fight tooth and nail trying to convince ourselves that we are right. It’s a natural [...]
I have to say – it’s nice to see the IMF admitting fault in misunderstanding the negative effect of austerity over the years. I like to say that it’s “only in being wrong that we can learn to be right.” So, what have we really learned from the last 5 years? Let’s step back and [...]
Investment Outlook August 2012 Cult Figures The long-term history of inflation adjusted returns from stocks shows a persistent but recently fading 6.6% real return since 1912. The legitimate question that market analysts, government forecasters and pension consultants should answer is how that return can be duplicated in the future. Unfair though it [...]
With computerized traders that “hold” stocks for only a few seconds at a time and markets that can swing wildly in a matter of moments, long-term investing seems to be on the verge of extinction. Perhaps this is inevitable. It turns out that short-term thinking is deeply embedded in the workings of the human brain. [...]
Already this year, the S&P 500 index of U.S. stocks has gained 11.8%, not counting dividends. With just one more push like that it will hit an all-time high. U.S. shares are now worth more than yearly GDP. That has investors wondering if prices have once again gotten frothy. By one measure, they haven’t. The [...]
Think you have enough money stashed away in case of a job loss or emergency? Think again. Many rainy-day funds are failing to keep up with the still-grim reality of today’s job market and the higher prices for necessities like food and gas. And many savers aren’t making adjustments even after a life-changing event [...]
