Even before annuity rates dropped to the low rates that they are today, annuities had very much given way to the ARF as the retirement option of choice. Even though they were giving up guarantees and assuming all the investment risk, retirees preferred to have control of their own retirement fund. One of the biggest […]
In this week’s article, I am going to go Stateside and look at why the college debt forgiveness deal that Joe Biden announced is actually good for the US when you compare it to the tax deal that Donald Trump signed. Trickle down economics Donald Trump oversaw the biggest overhaul in the US tax code […]
We frequently hear people comparing investing to gambling. When in fact, they are the opposite. When you gamble, your greatest chances of coming out on top is in the near term. The longer you gamble, your chances of beating the house decrease further and further. With investing, the chances of losing money in the short […]
Ask any financial advisor if you should borrow to invest in a basket of equities and 99.9% (0.1% margin of error) of them would tell you no. There are loads of reasons why you shouldn’t. The cost of entry for investing in equities is very low. You can just save up a small amount and […]
When I do a risk profiling questionnaire with clients with DataPoints, the first topic in the results that we talk about is Investing Confidence. Making decisions about investing requires you to have confidence in the decisions you make. You need to be confident that you invested in the correct assets and it will come good […]
In the book, How much is enough? by Arun Abey & Andrew Ford, they lay out the four golden principles of investing. They are quite simple and easy to follow. They are not new either but sometimes we lose sight of them, especially when FOMO takes over and we want large returns instantly. Principle 1 […]
In an episode of The Simpsons, in an attempt to get a free can of Crystal Buzz Cola, Homer sticks his arm up the chute of a vending machine and it gets stuck. He ends up with his other arm stuck up the chute of the candy machine. Just before they are about to saw […]
There is a lot of pension legislation coming from Europe that is having a big impact on pensions in Ireland. It is important to have an idea of where this has come from first. The first directive, known as IORPS I was introduced in 2004/2005. The government at the time availed of an option not […]
In 1992, the top 10 holdings in the S&P 500 were: General Electric Exxon AT&T Wal-Mart Coca-Cola Philip Morris Shell Merck Proctor & Gamble General Motors 10 years later the top 10 holdings were: Microsoft General Electric Exxon Pfizer Wal-Mart Citigroup IBM Intel Cisco System In 2012, the top 10 holdings were: Apple Exxon Google […]
I had a financial planning meeting with Bob last week. Going through his investments, he noticed they were up 7%. He was both delighted and surprised. How could this be with everything that is going on in the markets? Bob looks at his portfolio once a year when we update his plan. For the other […]