Entries for September 2011

According to study published by Watson Wyatt, employees view competitive retirement and health care plans as significant differentiators when making a decision on where to work and how long to stay.  41% of employees say retirement benefits are compelling them to stay with their current employer.  25% cite the company’s retirement plan as an important factor in their decision to work for their current employer.  According to Aon Hewitt, if an employee is between the ages of ...  Read more...

Recently I did a bicycle trip along the coast of Oregon. I wrote about the trip as some parts were quite beautiful and worth remembering.   In addition, there were some very funny moments. I shared the writings with several friends.   One person asked me if I did the writing “contemporaneously?” That caused me to look up that word because I was unsure of its meaning. My dictionary defined the word contemporaneously, as “belonging to the same period.” ...  Read more...

In Francois Trahan's recent interview with WealthTrack's Consuelo Mack, Francois explains why he believes the Fed has run out of bullets in managing the economy via the Fed Funds rate. In short, he believes the old economic rules do not work and new market drivers should be considered by investors. Francois believes the new Fed Funds rate is actually the consumer price index or CPI.Francois has been rated the #1 portfolio strategist for the last three years by Institutional Investor. The intervi...  Read more...

The low level of interest rates on fixed income investments is forcing investors to consider alternative income sources in their investment portfolio. One income source investors have considered as an alternative is dividend paying stocks. A caveat is stocks have historically been more volatile (standard deviation) than bonds as noted in the below table.From The Blog of HORAN Capital AdvisorsHowever, given the low level of bond interest rates, the yield on dividend paying stocks is now at its hi...  Read more...

Recently MetLife published an excerpt from their annual study on Employee Benefits Trends titled Remodeling the Benefits and Retirement Income Space. It is a well written piece and we would be glad to send you the entire report. I used the report to base my comments below on the importance of financial wellness to overall good health.   Is there a linkage between stress and financial wellness? If so, is it important? Stress is associated with numerous health issues...  Read more...

As I have noted in the past, one investment strategy that seems to garner press attention from time to time is the "Dogs of the Dow" investment strategy. The strategy consists of selecting the ten stocks that have the highest dividend yield from the stocks in the Dow Jones Industrial Index (DJIA) after the close of business on the last trading day of the year. Once the ten stocks are determined, an investor would invest an equal dollar amount in each of the ten stocks and hold them for a year.T...  Read more...

I am taken with the fact that we will, as a population, live a long time due to excellent and ever improving health care but we are not recognizing the issues that arise to support a long and dynamic life. At best, if one needs to live a long life one would like to live it well which means not only being healthy, but also having the financial means to enjoy life with good health. As my mother says, “it is great to always visit my grandchildren and bring a gift but the best gift I can g...  Read more...

The American System of Retirement could always be diagramed as a three legged stool. In other words if you were going to sit out your retirement years you could depend on a three legged stool to support you. Text books even diagramed this perspective and went to great lengths to outline how it looked and how it worked. The first leg or support system was the Federal Government program of Social Security. The system was originally designed to provide a replacement income of 40% to the average...  Read more...

With the recent sell off in the equity markets that began in mid July, one would suspect cash balances would be elevated. As the below chart notes, cash balances as a percentage of all mutual fund assets is near record lows though. Historically, low levels of money market cash have been associated with equity market tops.From The Blog of HORAN Capital AdvisorsOn the other hand given the meager interest rates paid on deposits investors might be going elsewhere with their cash. From a strategy per...  Read more...

Today HORAN Associates, HORAN Capital Advisors' business partner, launched a blog focusing on industry trends and data related to health care and wealth management. The blog, HORAN Health.Wealth.Life, will focus on articles written by HORAN Associates' CEO, Terry Horan, CLU, ChFC, and will focus on two of the greatest challenges Americans are facing today:access to quality, affordable health care; andsecuring professional counsel to build and sustain wealth for a lifetimeAs Terry notes, readers...  Read more...