Shelby Smith

In recent weeks the financial markets have been in utter turmoil. Massive failures, forced mergers and unprecedented losses have all but wiped out Wall Street. Credit markets are frozen, and banks are dangerously close to Armageddon. Hard working families have had their retirement accounts shredded by stomach-churning losses in the stock market. The global economy is on the precipice of a bone-crunching recession and the massive intervention of governments is not yet working. Markets continu

Lately there have been a lot of references to “stagflation” when describing the current economic outlook. Webster’s defines stagflation as: an inflationary period accompanied by rising unemployment and lack of growth in consumer demand and business activity. In other words, there are a lot of people who are out of work but prices are increasing like there is too much money chasing too few goods. What does this mean for your retirement planning?

Many of you are in the red zone right before retirement, or you've already retired. No doubt your number one fear is running out of money in retirement. You're part of a very large and growing demographic force: 35 million over age 65, 50 million drawing Social Security and 78 million baby boomers now turning 62. This means the future demand for everything used by the "retirement set" will increase, and "retirement prices" will rise dramatically. Many of you ...

Longevity risk is the greatest fear of most retirees. You can now buy insurance to protect you from longevity risk: the risk of outliving you money. Just like you insure your home, car, health, etc. from the expenses of loss, insurance companies now offer annuities to protect you in retirement. What's more ...

Most individuals in or near retirement have three financial legs to support them in retirement: Social Security benefits; qualified retirement savings [401(k), IRA, 403(b), etc.] on which taxes have not yet been paid; non-qualified savings and investments on which taxes have been paid on the principal and possibly some or all of the earnings. By carefully coordinating the use of these three sources of money, the typical retirement-minded couple can add up to 20% to their after-tax income and ...

If you've spent a lifetime of scrimping and scrapping to build a retirement nest egg, the last thing in the world you want to do is expose it to risk of loss. You don't want to lose any of it, let alone most or all of it. But, sometimes we do things that are not good for us because we're not fully aware of the dangers. This includes not faithfully getting medical checkups, driving too fast at night on rain-slick roads, and...

I'm always being asked whether or not to move a 401(k) or other employer-sponsored pension plans when leaving an employer. Generally the answer is "move your pension money when you leave an employer". Here are some advantages of moving a 401(k) rather than leaving it

We all want the highest interest rate possible and the lowest risk possible - unfortunately these are competing objectives. High rates always spell high risk BUT high risk does not always spell high rates. You should know that risk and reward are traveling companions: if you want low risk you've got to settle for low rates and if you want the chance of making high rates you've got to accept high risk.

One of the most important retirement decisions facing most Americans is: WHEN TO START SOCIAL SECURITY BENEFITS. Conventional wisdom has always been "take it as early as possible -- age 62". Why? Several reasons are given: (a) it might not be there if you wait; (b) you can take the benefits and invest them and...

Annuities are probably the most maligned and misunderstood of all safe investment alternatives. They are often championed as the best thing since paper money by those who sell them and smeared by stockbrokers, business reporters and virtually everyone selling securities (Personally, I've never understood why investments that have risk are called "securities").