In a pre-pandemic world, continuing education (CE) credits were easy to acquire. If you attend enough events, conferences, etc., it was impossible to not collect sufficient CE to renew your various certifications. That’s because CE credits to maintain one’s CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNERTM (or other) designation were available at local and national Financial Planning Association (FPA) […]
Credit Risk for Interest Rate Risk
I gave a listen to a recent episode of the Stay Wealthy podcast. Investment manager Cullen Roche was the guest for the episode. In the episode, (if I understand his argument correctly) Cullen suggests short-term corporate bonds for one’s fixed income portfolio. He argues that Treasury bonds are currently paying too little to merit the […]
Are Long-Term Treasury Bonds Worth Holding? II
Read Part I of the series on Long-Term Treasury bonds here.Read about ideal bond maturity here. Interest rate risk is scaring investors away from longer maturity bonds. And this is the case regardless of issuer quality – whether’s it high-quality U.S. government Treasury bonds, or low-quality emerging market debt. Given today’s low interest […]
Are Long-Term Treasury Bonds Worth Holding?
Ah, bonds. They’re quite the investment instrument. In a world of volatile stocks, bonds offer safety of principal – at least if you’re doing it right. That means shunning corporate bonds in favor of Treasury bonds, which includes shunning high-yield bonds. Yes, Treasury bonds are where the safe portion of your investments should lay – […]
Don’t Buy a House; Take a Sabbatical Instead
I’m writing this just a few feet from the beach – from the comfort our little self-converted recreational vehicle (RV). This is roughly our seventh month on the road – and almost one year since I’ve left the office. As I’ve enjoyed learning a whole new skillset in the van-building process (electronic schematics, electrical soldering), […]
The Cruel Math of Inflation on Stagnant Wage Growth for Late-Stage Earners
I’ve come across two distinct clients recently who were experiencing identical issues. Both clients were single women on the cusp of retirement. And, as with almost every middle-class American, these two distinct clients faced an identical situation: They had not saved enough money. The simple (obvious?) solution to their savings shortfall was to downgrade their […]