Welcome to the second half of 2022. What’s up next? As always, your guess is as good as ours. If anything, the past quarter has demonstrated how even familiar shores can shape-shift on us with each tide. Following are a few of the ways in which the financial landscape has been disorienting us lately.
There’s been a lot of talk about recessions lately: Whether one is near, far, or perhaps already here. Whether we can or should try to avoid it. What it even means to be in a recession, and how it’s related to current market turmoil. To put market and recessionary concerns in perspective, it might help to describe six ways a recession resembles a bad mood. There are some intriguing similarities!
Is rising inflation souring your financial plans? Protecting the bulk of your wealth is mostly about building and maintaining a well-structured investment portfolio with a few anti-inflation elements. Outside of your core portfolio, there is also a potentially sweet deal for turning some of inflation’s lemons into lemonade. We’re talking about U.S. Series I Saving Bonds (“I Bonds”). I Bonds are not a cure-all for inflation. And there is a thing or two to know about them before you decide whether to proceed.
First Quarter 2022|Jim Williams| Decision architecture on withdrawal strategies for funding retirement from investment portfolios; how much, how to decide is written about extensively. Most of this writing is rich in calculations, charts, graphs and other numerical presentation. I think many readers find that kind of source material off-putting and lose sight of the forest by being surrounded by trees. This essay will seek to explain a variety of withdrawal frameworks with a minimum of recourse to numbers.
In our last piece, we covered fund management costs. Next, let’s take a step back from the mutual funds, ETFs, or other holdings you decide to invest in. Where do these holdings live—and what does it cost to buy, sell, and hold them?
What are your investments really costing you? If you’re not sure, you’re not alone. It’s not like you’re handed a menu of charges to choose from when it’s time to place your order. Even when you know where to look for investment costs, the information can be difficult to digest. Let’s fill in some of the blanks by covering two significant sources of investment costs: fund management fees, and custodian/brokerage (trading) costs. Today, we’ll talk about fund management fees.