Excel in Retirement

It's easy when we face something we’re not familiar with to shy away from it or move on to a topic we’re more comfortable with. Recently I saw on social media a way to understand our national debt better. This was written on May 20th:

·      “A million seconds ago was May 8th.

·      A billion seconds ago was 1993.

·      A trillion seconds ago was 30,000 B.C.

·      The US national debt is now rising by $1 Trillion every 100 days...

You’ve probably heard by now that Silicon Valley Bank failed last Friday. 

It appears the bank rapidly took deposits over the last few years, and they needed somewhere to place their funds. And here begins the problem. The bank put money in Treasury bonds and mortgage-backed securities. When interest rates go up, bonds lose value.

A few depositors figured this out and began withdrawing their large deposits in the ...

Like a lot of people, I’ve always had a job where I work with people, and it’s always fascinated me to try to figure out why people think the way they do. People are unique, but their themes are similar.

In my role as a financial planner, I primarily assist Baby Boomers who are navigating how to retire. Or that’s often when we were first acquainted. In our initial meeting I always ask, “How are you feeling about the stock market?” Y...

With inflation at 40-year highs some seniors feel this year’s big cost of living increase in Social Security is falling short. Yahoo Finance had an article last week that said, “According to a new survey by the Senior Citizens League, 54% of older Americans think the 8.7% increase in the Social Security cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) this year won't keep up with inflation.”

What’s troubling is that the government’s rapid inte...

When we age into the time we can claim Social Security the temptation is strong to get the money as soon as we can. In fact, most people claim as soon as they can at 62. I get it. I love having extra money in my pocket, but it’s important to understand that we may be giving up quite a bit of money.

The Wall Street Journal had an article last Sunday about this topic. It said, “A recent study, funded by the Federal Reserve B...

Did you ever read Sherlock Holmes? In the 1894 story entitled “The Adventure of Silver Blaze” Holmes noticed something odd when he was attempting to solve the mystery.

Holmes said, “the curious incident of the dog in the night-time” and the detail that the dog did not bark or make a commotion during the commission of the crime. Holmes concluded that the suspect must be someone the dog knew because the dog didn’t stir. If someone is ...

The media and the government have gotten creative with answering whether we are in a recession or not in order to make our economic situation better than reality. The traditional definition of a recession is being redefined. Historically, the definition of a recession has been two negative quarters of growth in the gross domestic production. In the first quarter of this year the GDP declined -1.16% and at the end of June the second...

Wall Street has done a great job of marketing us. So much so that they have convinced us that we should sell our Amazon stock to pay our cable bill. Warren Buffett once said, “If you aren’t willing to own a stock for ten years, don’t even think about owning it for ten minutes.” We take his advice to heart. We can’t be invested in the market for ten years if we are using that same bucket of money to create income. So, what do we do?

...

We sometimes  become quite loyal to the companies we are invested in. It may be a company we worked for or it may be an investment we inherited from our parents. Oftentimes, people in this scenario have a high concentration of their portfolio in one stock or one industry sector.

The problem with this type of investing is that sometimes companies or sectors falter and this could leave us overexposed and feeling distraught.  Just as i...

In my twenties I loved riding and racing bicycles! Most of my races were on a closed circuit that was less than a mile long. The race would go around the closed loop for anywhere from 45 minutes or an hour.

This kind of racing gets fast! My strategy was to stay in the front third of the group of racers and then in the last lap sprint to the finish. 

During that hour leading up to the finish it’s a fight to survive and not crash. Ever...

It was recently revealed that the stock market had its worst first half of the year since 1970 and several analysts are indicating the market still has further to drop. The article linked here states equities “Face a triple whammy of sticky inflation, recession risks, and the threat to corporate profits sinking consumer confidence.”   

We don’t have to believe the adage that nobody could have seen this problem coming. 

Congressman Th...

Our idea of successful retirement planning is creating a proverbial space suit for our clients that insulates them from twitches in the financial markets that we can’t control.

We create a buffer that allows our clients to know that they have a stable bucket of money available to them for income and expenses. This bucket of money is productively growing and can be drawn down over ten years.

After we have our income and expenses bucke...

When I was in college I loved riding road bicycles. One of the first full years riding, I rode about 3,500 miles. The next year I started racing. Some people didn’t have a base of previous mileage on their legs before they raced. 

From the muscle memory perspective,  I felt advantaged that I had done the training the prior year. I raced for two years and was able to win two races. It’s addictive. When we start physical activities, o...

If you’re watching the news this week you may have seen the wild swings in the market. If one thing is certain it’s that we need to know that when we’re in the market, we may lose money. The market has been generous for over a decade due to easy money policies like ultralow interest rates and government bond buying.

The market tends to be forward looking and price events before they have happened, but the government has done a lousy...

On The Podcast This Week

Doug, our new support staff member, joins David on the podcast this week. Doug and David talk about the ideal time to retire. 

Investment advisory services offered only by duly registered individuals through AE Wealth Management, LLC (AEWM). AEWM and Clients Excel, LLC are not affiliated companies. Investing involves risk, including potential loss of principal. Any references to protection, safety, or li...

Our business is growing! We’ve grown each year of our existence and we are on track to continue that pattern this year. We are growth minded, client focused, and desire to continue to serve new clients. Like most businesses, we were required to innovate during the COVID pandemic and fortunately, we came out of that situation stronger than we were.

 We are growth minded, client focused, and desire to continue to serve new clients. Li...

While it looks all but certain that we are heading into an economic recession, it’s important to consider what positive outcomes may be possible during this time. It’s also important to understand that if we do experience a setback due to market losses, we may be able to recover more quickly if we have good investing habits in place. Part of this habit is developed at the outset with clearly defined expectations on how to or how no...

Often people attempt to guess at what will cause the next market correction, and sometimes we are taken off guard. Things like September 11th happen or the Coronavirus. Nobody saw those events coming, and they caused a major downturn in the market. These are commonly referred to as “black swan” events.

This year is different. We’ve seen this recession coming. The government announced last year that the Fed would begin increasing int...

Shortly after the turn of the century a doctor named Gordon Lithgow in the UK coined a new term. Seeking to distinguish between the years we are healthy and functional and our actual lifespan he began using the word “healthspan.”

Dr. Peter Attia defines longevity using two things. He says lifespan is how long we live and healthspan is how well we live. Within healthspan he states there are three dimensions. There is the cognitive di...