Insights

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.

Fourth Quarter 2021|Jim Williams| Over the years, and much more recently, I've had a lot of conversations with folks about the transition from accumulation to decumulation, from work to retirement. These conversations have ranged from coaching and counseling on very simple and straightforward issues to extremely complex ones; from formal and professional to informal and casual.

How do you invest your money over the long-term? If you've read much of our work, you've probably noticed we embrace evidence-based investing. But what does that mean?