General

Impact of the Trump administration’s Potential Tax Reform

Posted By Financial Independence Hub | February 1, 2017

Summary of potential tax cut across Indexes

By Jeremy Schwartz, Director of Research, WisdomTree Investments and

Josh Russell, Quantitative Equity Strategist, WisdomTree Investments

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

Corporate tax cuts were a focal point of Donald Trump’s campaign — and Trump says lowering corporate taxes will be a priority in his first 100 days as president.

Based on the initial market response to Trump’s victory, lowering tax rates looks to us like the most important factor driving the market.

Equity markets, of course, like it when taxes are cut. It naturally means more after-tax earnings that can be reinvested or distributed to shareholders — and, importantly, an improvement in valuation ratios that many think look extended under present circumstances.

We published an initial sensitivity analysis to look at how various assumptions on tax rates might impact the earnings growth and ultimate market valuations across a market cap-weighted index set of the S&P 500, S&P 400 and S&P 600 — and across the sectors in those indexes. We have updated our original analysis to also include domestic WisdomTree Indexes; we also have updated our initial model for estimating the potential tax benefit that shows new results for the cap-weighted index family.¹

Lower Tax Rates = Big Earnings Growth and Market Moves in Small Caps

To summarize the results, a simple model shows the following: the more earnings (and taxes paid) that come from the U.S., the greater the earnings growth would be from a tax cut, because by and large, the companies with revenue across the world already have lower effective tax rates. Continue Reading…

4 key factors and 3 tips to consider when investing for retirement

Posted By Pat McKeough | January 31, 2017

We recommend that you base your investing for retirement on a sound financial plan. Here are the four key factors that your plan should address to ensure that your retirement investing generates enough income in retirement:

1.) How much you expect to save prior to retirement;

2.) The return you expect on your savings;

3.) How much of that return you’ll have left after taxes;

4.) How much retirement income you’ll need once you’ve left the workforce.

Stick with conservative estimates to account for unforeseen setbacks

As for the return you expect from investing for retirement, it’s best to aim low. If you invest in bonds, assume you will earn the current yield; don’t assume you can make money trading in bonds.

Over long periods, the total return on a well-diversified portfolio of high-quality stocks runs to as much as 10%, or around 7.5% after inflation. Aim lower in your retirement planning —5% a year, say — to allow for unforeseeable problems and setbacks.

Above all, it’s important to remember that while finances are important, the happiest retirees are those who stay busy. You can do that with travel, golf or sailing. But volunteering, or working part-time at something you enjoy, can work just as well.

One thing we encourage all investors to do is perform a detailed study of how you spend your money now. Then, you analyze your findings to see what personal expenses you can cut or eliminate. This too can have fringe benefits, especially if it helps you break unhealthy habits. You may be surprised at how much you’re spending and how much more you could be saving for retirement.

Dollar-cost averaging brings automatic profits

Millennials don’t get the Latte Factor

Posted By Robb Engen | January 30, 2017

Financial author David Bach introduced the Latte Factor as a metaphor for all the small indulgences we regularly treat ourselves to that add up over time. It wasn’t meant to single out Starbucks as the main culprit for our financial woes, but somehow millennials feel the need to stand up for their beloved coffeehouse and defend their right to buy an obnoxious drink whenever they damn well please.

Helaine Olen (not a millennial) made people feel good about buying lattes again when, in her best selling book, Pound Foolish, she explained how the Latte Factor is a lie and buying coffee every day is not why you’re in debt. No, instead it’s the big things: housing, transportation, health care (in the U.S.) that are more difficult to cut back on.

More recently, this author whined about how millennials were being judged on their spending choices, criticizing a survey that revealed millennials spend more on coffee than on saving for retirement:

“Millennials are continually being accused of wasting money on supposedly frivolous things. In October, an Australian man named Bernard Salt wrote that he had had enough of seeing young people ordering “smashed avocado with crumbled feta on five-grain toasted bread at $22 a pop and more. Twenty-two dollars several times a week could go towards a deposit on a house,” wrote Salt.

According to my calculation, if millennials were to abstain from their avocado toast three times a week, they’d save around $3,432 per year. Which isn’t all that much, in reality.”

Oh really? And in what reality is $3,432 not that much money? According to the author, life is unfair and millennials should just give up on the idea of owning a home, or saving for retirement, so just let them have their damn latte and $22 toast.

My take on the Latte Factor Continue Reading…

Better Retirement choices: An elegantly simple solution

Posted By Financial Independence Hub | January 27, 2017

By Doug Dahmer

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

“Life,” philosopher Albert Camus contended, “is the sum of all your choices.”

Do you think otherwise?

Good or bad. Easy or hard. Right or wrong. Every choice you make will impact your life to some degree.

Choices with little impact are often made without much thought and the trouble is this casual approach to decision making tends to be deployed on bigger and more impactful choices.

In my profession, as a retirement income specialist, I see poorly made choices all the time. They, unfortunately, tend to be life altering, irreversible and totally avoidable. Like a doctor passing along a gloomy prognosis, I am heartbroken to see the look on peoples’ faces when I tell them how a choice they made will put them at a disadvantage for the rest of their lives.

And, as I said, many of these damaging financial choices are often avoidable.

The Retirement Risk Zone Years (TRRZY)

The years leading up to, and the early years of retirement are packed with important choices that can create turning points in your life. We call this period of your life ‘The Retirement Risk Zone Years’ (TRRZY).

TRRZY has aptly earned this acronym because this phase of life contains the highest concentration of high-impact choices that can lead to turning events, both good and bad, in people’s lives.

It is important to recognize that the number and frequency of tough and important choices increases during this time. In addition, the implications of choosing poorly intensify as both time and flexibility have turned from friend to foe. Successfully creating your best possible retirement years is directly linked to how well you navigate the challenging choices of TRRZY.

Over this nearly two-decade period we must adapt our thinking to a new reality. Strategies that served us well during our savings years can turn on their heads and start to work to our disadvantage as our flow of funds reverses from saving to spending. Those who fail to recognize and adapt to this new thinking have a high propensity for making poor choices, many of which they will regret in future years.

Turning Points during “TRRZY”

Retired Money: Everything you wanted to know about LIRAs but were afraid to ask

Posted By Jonathan Chevreau | January 26, 2017

We’re now well into RRSP season, as the last two days of Hub posts demonstrates. See RRSPs: getting past the contribution inertia (a guest blog by Sage Investors’ Aman Raina), and my latest FP article, reprised on the Hub as Why RRSPs are less critical for Millennials than for the Boomers.

Over at MoneySense, my latest Retired Money column has been published, and it looks at the closely related topic of LIRAs (Locked-in Retirement Accounts, which have been termed “the RRSP’s less flexible cousin.” You can find the full column by clicking on this highlighted headline: Unlocking the Mystery of LIRAs.

In a nutshell, LIRAs are also known in some provinces as Locked-in RRSPs, which is exactly what they are. Unlike regular RRSPs, from which you can withdraw funds (and pay tax) if you need it at any time, LIRAs generally prohibit you from making any withdrawals before 55. Granted, when you’re younger that prohibition — illustrated above as a locked piggy bank — may seem frustrating but the idea is to protect our future retired selves from our current “tempted to spend it all” current selves.

As TriDelta Financial wealth advisor Matthew Ardrey told me, you’re going to see a lot more about LIRAs in the coming years. Whether you’re leaving a classic Defined Benefit pension plan or a more market-tied Defined Contribution pension plan, the job market these days is in such flux that a lot of people are going to have to start learning about what happens when you leave an employer pension plan earlier than you might once have envisaged.

LIRAs will multiply as Boomers reach Findependence

In the case of leaving an employer that provided you with a DB pension, you’ll be getting a lump sum based on the so-called “Commuted Value” of the pension at the time you leave (whether voluntarily or due to corporate layoffs or restructuring). I suggest that those who value the certainty of future DB pension payments plan eventually to annuitize such plans, likely the end of the year you turn 71. Continue Reading…

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