One of my favorite movies is “A Wonderful Life”. It is a Christmas Classic starring Jimmy Stewart. It is about man who believes he has been wasting his life in a bank and everyone was getting ahead in life but him. He thought this until an angel shows him all the wonderful things he has in his life. Do you need an angel in your life to show you what you are missing? I believe it may be a purpose and happiness.
Stocks have been more volatile because the difference between perception and reality of financial economic conditions is growing wider. The S&P 500 — the key benchmark of America — is supposed to price shares after discounting everything — the Federal Reserve’s policies, politics, inflation, and population trends. When fundamental facts grow harder to discern, stocks grow more volatile, and that’s what’s been happening lately, especially with the widespread misperception of the yield curve inversion. A yield curve inversion is when the yield on 10 year US Treasury Bonds is less than the yield on three-month T Bills. Since the 1960s, when investors thought the 10-year long term outlook for bonds looked worse than the three month outlook, inverting the yield, recessions usually followed 12 to 18 months later. While the recent inversion of the yield curve is perceived as evidence a recession is on the way, the reality is very different. The inversion of the yield curve currently is being driven by negative interest rates in Europe. Negative yields in Europe and Japan — an unprecedented condition in the largest economies in the world — is a new thing and it’s not widely understood.
Part 2 of Do You Want To Retire Early? F.I.R.E. is an acronym. It stands for Financial Independence Retire Early. There's a growing movement of people who are practicing FIRE principles and retiring decades earlier than expected as a result. Smart, often middle-income earners are using a simple formula of high savings rates (50-70% of their incomes) + frugal living (minimalism) + low-cost stock index fund investing (Warren Buffett’s standard investment advice) in order to reach financial independence within short, usually around 10-year periods of time. For obvious reasons, FIRE is sometimes referred to as “the ultimate life hack.” This large and growing community has an ever-increasing cadre of 100+ high-traffic bloggers, most of whom chronicle their FIRE journeys and publish details of their methods, and report their actual personal financial information along the way. It’s a fascinating voyeuristic genre with an alluring punchline: retire early and pursue your true passions! There is more and more journalistic coverage of FIRE. Just search Google News for “early retirement” or “early financial independence” and you’ll find almost daily coverage of this fascinating phenomenon. Joining us for our discussion on Do You Want To Retire Early? is who is calling in from his Seattle Washington WA office . Paul Merriman is a nationally recognized authority on mutual funds, index investing, asset allocation and both buy-and-hold and active management strategies. Now retired from Merriman, the Seattle-based investment advisory firm he founded in 1983, he is dedicated to educating investors, young and old, through weekly articles at Marketwatch.com, and via complimentary eBooks, podcasts, articles, recommendations for mutual funds, ETFs, 401(k) plans and more, at Paulmerriman.com . He has 3 Complimentary Ebooks “First Time Investor: Grow And Protect Your Money,” “101 Investment Decision Guaranteed To Change Your Financial Future,” And “Get Smart Or Get Screwed: How To Select The Best And Get The Most From Your Financial Advisor.” WELCOME BACK TO MASTERING YOUR MONEY, PAUL MERRIMAN
Retirement can be a new, complex world. Our goal here is to help you understand that the retirement distribution game – spending assets in retirement – is much different than the accumulation game when you’re saving for retirement. Chances are, you have been in the accumulation phase of your life for several decades. You’ve been working hard trying to save money and hopefully your accounts have grown. But now, as you enter or prepare for retirement, you’re in an entirely different phase… The distribution phase. And the distribution phase has new, strange rules that can catch people off guard. Along with those new rules, there are often many changes in your own personal life that can have a big impact on your taxes, too.
Stock prices have soared in 2019, breaking records repeatedly, and the latest economic signals — though less robust — indicate no recession is on the horizon. Perhaps the biggest risk threatening to end the 10-year old expansion is the Federal Reserve Board’s inflation policy.
Do you ever find yourself wondering where all your money went at the end of the month? Check Out This Interview On Your Financial Health http://masteringyourmoney.com/
If you want to be rich, change. Grow, Get organized. Check Out This Interview On Better Finances in 30 days http://masteringyourmoney.com/
African-American consumers spend $1.1 trillion a year. Check Out This Interview On Black Economic Empowerment http://masteringyourmoney.com/
Today’s topic, of course, is about the new tax rules. Check Our Video Blog On The New Tax Laws http://masteringyourmoney.com/
Our listeners may be hearing a lot about Tariffs in the news. By definition, a tariff is simply a tax on imported goods. Check Out This Interview On Tariffs and Our Economy http://masteringyourmoney.com/