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Retirement Investing

Bob Carlson offers his expert opinion on where to invest your money so that you can get through retirement safely and securely

Found 845 Articles.
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Bob’s Journal 12/20/2018

January 10, 2019

Last week’s Employment Situation reports were extremely strong, but don’t use them as good indicators of the strength of the economy or its trend. The nonfarm payrolls report showed that 312,000 new jobs were created, and revisions added a total of 58,000 jobs for the previous two months. The number of new jobs was well […]

Bob’s Journal for 1/3/2019

January 3, 2019

While Treasury bonds outperformed stocks in 2018, what happened within the bond markets was more important to investors. Stocks outperform bonds over the long term, but bonds have better years from time to time. Treasury bonds have outperformed the major stock indexes for only a few calendar years since the end of the financial crisis. […]

The 2018 Market and Economic Review

December 27, 2018

Almost everyone’s 2018 predictions were wrong. But that’s almost always the case. We had another year of unexpected and startling changes in the economy and markets. Trends couldn’t have been much better than they were at the end of 2017. The economy was surging across the board, and U.S. stock indexes were moving steadily higher. […]

Bob’s Journal (12/20/2018)

December 20, 2018

Recent inflation data are sending a warning to the Federal Reserve, but the Fed doesn’t seem to be heeding it. About a year after the financial crisis hit bottom, I presented a workshop to a group of individual investors. One of the group members gave me a hard time. I had said inflation would stay […]

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The Power of Framing

December 17, 2018

Dear Reader: Would you rather spend $3 a day for something or $1,095 a year? Which makes you more likely to pay for something by a certain date: a 20% discount for early payment or a 20% penalty for paying later? The answer to both these questions is supposed to be that it doesn’t matter. […]

The Scope of Retirement Success

December 17, 2018

Some years ago, I was a speaker at a conference in the Cayman Islands. Most of the speakers dressed casually and enjoyed the local attractions when we weren’t making presentations. One afternoon, I ran into one of the other speakers in the hotel lobby. He was dressed in a suit and tie. While wiping away […]

Where Will the Fed Drive the Economy Next?

December 17, 2018

The markets now seem to realize what the Fed has been up to, but the markets probably still are behind the curve. Investors as a group made two of their recurring mistakes during most of 2018. They projected that the recent past would continue indefinitely, and they focused on short-term news, or noise, instead of […]

Can You Spend More in Retirement Than You’ve Been Told?

December 17, 2018

Longtime readers know I believe the spending plan is the biggest gap in most retirement plans. The spending plan ensures you won’t run out of money in retirement. It answers the question: What’s the maximum amount I can spend each year and not risk running out of money? The longtime consensus among financial planners is […]

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