Hot Off the Web- January 25, 2009 Chris Farrell in BusinessWeek’s “Why you’ll work through your retirement” says that you should forget retirement! The economic collapse has altered expectation of a retirement of leisure, which is out of reach for most retirees. Retirees are also living longer and are healthier, so many will be able […]
Hot Off the Web- January 18, 2009 The disaster story of the week (at least for me, an ex employee with almost 30 years of service and now an underfunded pension plan) was that Nortel filed for bankruptcy protection. You can read the take of the Globe and Mail in “Nortel files for bankruptcy protection” […]
Hot Off the Web- January 11, 2009 John Bogle’s “Six lessons for investors” in the WSJ are: (1) beware of market forecasts (unreliable even from experts), (2) never underrate importance of asset allocation (“a good place to start is a bond percentage equals your age”), (3) mutual funds with superior performance often falter, (4) owning […]
Hot Off the Web- January 4, 2009 S&P/Case-Shiller housing index October numbers are out and the devastation continues Phoenix, Miami, Las Vegas are down 30-35% from last year and 3-4% from last month; the multicity composite indices are also down about 18% from last year and 2% from last month. Prices are now back to […]
Hot Off the web- December 28, 2008 Craig Karmin’s “Say goodbye and good riddance to 2008…” in the WSJ summarizes it well, that 2008 was “a year when the most dire financial predictions finally came true”. He then enumerates the sorry list: U.S. stock market off about 40% (worst in 77 years), emerging market down […]
Hot Off the Web- December 21, 2008 Bad enough that the recent market crash has damaged many retirees’ and would be retirees’ nest eggs to the tune of 15-40% depending on the asset allocation, but some investors who become victims of Ponzi schemes (everyone has heard of the one perpetrated by Madoff) appear to be […]
Hot Off the Web – December 14, 2008 The Financial Times’ Len Costa writes that the “Crisis throws rebalancing out of kilter” In the article he discusses how “the prospect of selling winners and buying into falling markets can test even the most resolute investor’s faith in asset allocation and the utility of diversification.” However […]
Hot Off the Web- December 7, 2008 In the understatement of the year that “Canadian pension plans shown to have flaws” the Financial Post’s Karen Mazukewich refers to “three new reports flagging the shortfalls and gaping inequities in our pension plans.” The issues reported are: (1) decreasing percentage of employees covered by DB pension plans, […]
Hot Off the Web – November 28, 2008 This month I celebrated two years of publishing RetirementAction.com, this retirement finance education and advocacy website. We are back from a gruelling but interesting trip to India and Nepal (and judging by the TV news reports, just in time). What we experienced is a land of contrasts […]
Hot Off the Web- November 2, 2008 Past week’s papers were filled with articles on why Ottawa should be considering “pension relief” for corporations with underfunded pension plans. But most commentators missed the real story. This is not about the impact on companies which are contractually responsible for the pensions; it is about the potentially […]
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