For the sake of liquidity (tax-favored accounts tend to be subject to tax penalties), you will want at least one tax-exposed account. Examples include money for a major business (buy out the boss), or personal outlay (second home), or a Tier 3 cash reserve. But let’s say that you need an equities component to enhance…

A similar folly can be seen with the way some people view real estate, which has many investment subcategories. Studies have shown that while residential realty values are immediately sensitive to interest rates and to recessions and booms, commercial real estate is less sensitive because of long-term leases. Experts agree, though, because of statistical studies,…

Options as Investments The owner of a call option has paid a dollar or so for the right to buy 100 shares of XYZ corporation’s stock (currently selling at $100/share) from the owner who sold the call option for $102/share at any time within a specified period, such as a year. The buyer knows that…

Make New Savings Very Aggressive, and Existing Assets Well Diversified The first secret to be shared here is that your investment portfolio’s asset allocation is always recommended by these programs and advisors to be the same for new contributions to savings as for existing lumps you have at risk. I strongly recommend that new qualified…

The two ways to buy LTCi are as stand-alone (ongoing premium) policies or as riders to life or annuity policies. Many new policies have this feature integrated into the policy. However, these “combo” or rider policies reduce death or annuity benefits when you withdraw money or use the LTCi benefit. Many people will want to…

Why buy insurance at all? Why not be self-insured and save the profit margin that carriers earn? After all, everybody knows that if you live to age 85 or so, the return on a life policy (represented by the death benefit) for the investment of premium is around 3%. Long-term investors can achieve much better…