Low interest rates and added regulation designed to head off another global financial crisis has made it more expensive and complicated to run a banking operation these days. Gone are the heady days when banks were building 200 new brick and mortar locations a month in the U.S. market, leading up to the market top […]
Probably the most forgotten minority in America is the “elder orphans”—aging retirees who no longer have a spouse (if they ever had one), no kids and no caregiver. According to The Gerontologist magazine, about one-third of 45 to 63-year-olds are single, and most of them never married or are divorced. Meanwhile, about 15% of 40-44-year-old […]
If you’re like most people, you carefully put off doing something fun—like taking a trip or treating yourself—until you finished your work. Of course, for most people, the work never ends, and the fun gets put off over and over and over again. The hidden assumption behind putting off fun is that you won’t enjoy […]
When most people think of the benefits of meditation, they get a vague image of peacefulness and tranquility, a quality of “mindfulness” that contrasts nicely with the distractions and hubub of our modern age. You might be surprised to find that scientists are finding more tangible benefits to a meditation habit. In one study conducted […]
Have you ever wondered what stock market professionals and equity analysts talk about in their spare time? Recently, the Bloomberg website featured a debate about something that is getting a lot of attention recently: the historically high, and still-rising U.S. stock market valuations. People have been willing to pay more, and more, and more for […]
Chances are, the market barometer you most often hear about is the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Every evening, the Dow’s ups or downs are soberly reported as if they reflect something important. They don’t. A recent online article noted that the 37-year-old index only reflects the performance of 30 U.S. multinational companies, and it doesn’t […]
Should today’s 70-year-old American be considered “old?” How do you define that term these days? Statistically, your average 70-year-old has just a 2% chance of dying within a year. The estimated upper limits of average life expectancy is now 97, and a rapidly growing number of 70-year-olds will live past age 100. Perhaps more importantly, […]
The Keys to Connecting How well do you connect with other people in informal social occasions? If you tend to be shy or awkward at cocktail parties or networking events, it can be bad for your career and rob you of connection with others who might become friends or mentors. Fortunately, there’s a solution. Researchers […]
2017 Second Quarter Report The U.S. stock market has more than tripled in value during the runup that started in March 2009, and the most recent quarter somehow managed to accelerate the upward trend. We have just experienced the third-best first half, in terms of U.S. market returns, of the 2000s. The Wilshire 5000 Total […]
What does it mean when your portfolio is up 10%? You receive portfolio performance reports every three months—a form of transparency that financial planning professionals introduced at a time when the typical brokerage statement was impossible to decipher. But it might surprise you to know that most professionals think there is actually little value to […]
