I am very sure that readers of Forecasts & Trends are as diligent as I am in following the news. We hear every day about how expensive groceries, energy and housing have become. But for those of us who are empty nesters or with just a 1- or 2-person household, our family expenses have already been reduced as we approach retirement.

Even if we have paid off our primary residence and don’t drive as much, there’s an expense that has hit us particularly hard in the last year – insurance.

I am sure you have noticed that insuring your car and home has gotten horribly expensive. We will explore this today and give you a few ideas on how to reduce those costs.

Today our focus is on your retirement dollars. I hope to clear up the biggest myth about Social Security, inform you about protections for your retirement accounts and whether you should max out your 401k.

As a follow up to my previous article about the importance of Cybersecurity Awareness, let’s look at investment fraud committed against seniors. After completing a couple of continuing education courses on the subject, I became very aware of how rampant investment fraud has become.

Since I am also a senior, it honestly scared the heck out of me. It amazes me that there are people with no moral compass who are committing this fraud. It also saddens me that good people will fall for their scams. You should be on the alert for investment fraud, crypto scams and romance scams.

Folks, this problem is serious! Remember, if it is too good to be true, run from it!

More and more people are asking us if a Roth IRA conversion is right for them. There are many considerations to understand, so today let’s take a look at what a Roth IRA conversion entails, the pluses and minuses of converting and some of the rules you need to know.

Please remember that the following is not specific advice on Roth IRA conversions but general information. Be sure to talk with your tax accountant and investment advisor before making a decision to convert.

Get used to hearing the term stagflation because this word is going to get thrown around a lot in the financial press. At Jerome Powell’s press conference on May 1, 2024, Powell downplayed concerns that the economy may be sliding into a period of "stagflation," which is marked by slow growth and stubbornly high inflation. Powell noted he was "around" for such a period in the 1970s and he dismissed any similarities in today's economy.

"I don't see the 'stag' or the 'flation,'" he said.

But are Powell and some economists too quick to downplay the chance of that the U.S. will experience slowing economic momentum with sticky inflation? We’ll take a look at that possibility today, followed by a warning to be wary of scams targeting seniors.

2024 is a presidential election year, which means some very familiar economic topics are forefront in the news. Three big topics usually debated are inflation, rising Federal debt and the insolvency of Social Security. The Social Security Administration has estimated that the Social Security Trust Fund will be depleted in 2033. Does this mean Social Security will be bankrupt or in default?

We’ll take a look at that and what rising U.S. Treasury yields may be telling us in that regard. Finally, I’ll share some advice on how to plan for the next stock market correction. We may be headed toward one in the near future, so it’s best to plan for it now.

I hope you aren’t getting nervous by all the chatter about the “Market” at an all-time high. When I started in this business after retiring from the U.S. Army way back in July 1994, the market indexes were a bit lower. The Dow Jones was at 3,764.50, the S&P 500 was at 458.26, and the Nasdaq Composite was at 722.16.

I have learned that the solution to all-time highs was more all-time highs. There have been a few bear markets along the way, but here we are today. I also learned that what the market was doing on any given day didn’t matter unless I needed my money at the time for income or some major expense.

In a WSJ article called Half of College Grads Are Working Jobs That Don’t Use Their Degrees, the authors state, “Roughly half of college graduates end up in jobs where their degrees aren’t needed, and that underemployment has lasting implications for workers’ earnings and career paths. More than any other factor analyzed including race, gender and choice of university what a person studies determines their odds of getting on a college-level career track.”

So what is the real value of a college education? Why are our college graduates failing to launch a career that uses what they learned in college? Then add the impact of student loan debt. It’s a real crime to have a large debt load at graduation, and you can’t even use your degree, praying the government will bail you out.

The focus today is on retirement. We either look forward to retirement or dread the day that it comes. It comes down to how much you have planned for it, saved for it and accepted that it will happen ready or not. Some hope it will all work out in the end, so they didn’t think much about it. Well hope is not a strategy. We will also talk about handing off your wealth to the next generation. 

In money management you always reap in a different season than you sow. And by the way, not all fruit ripens at the same time. When you have a peach tree, they’re not all ripe at once. They come in little by little. Investments can take time to grow too. Instant success is rare. 

When I started in this business, everything was dominated by stocks, bonds, mutual funds, buy-and-hold strategies, and basic equity-bond diversification. In general, this worked well before this century.

A lot has changed since I started in the business. Technology has had a big impact on how markets and investors operate. The interest rate and fixed income environments have changed dramatically. We have seen an increase in risk-managed strategies that can deliver competitive returns while seeking downside protection during volatile periods or in bear markets.