Risk Management: Dollar-Cost Averaging
Smart investors know that trying to time the market is often a losing game. Instead, you plan ahead and invest in such a way as to minimize risk and maximize your returns. Whether you’re a seasoned investor or just getting started, dollar-cost averaging could be beneficial.
What is dollar-cost averaging?In dollar-cost averaging, you invest a set amount of money into your investment portfolio over regular intervals. Rather than investing a large sum of money at once, dollar-cost ...Read More
Social Security and Retirement Earnings
The fact that you've decided to retire doesn't necessarily mean you want to stop working. Retirement is a great time to explore alternative career options, try your hand at a new career, or work part-time to add a little extra cash to your bottom line every month.
However, continuing to work while collecting social security can affect your monthly benefits if you claim these before your full retirement age. Your full retirement age depends on the year you were born, so make sure ...Read More
Important Information on Student Loan Relief
The White House forgave up to $10,000 to student loan borrowers recently as part of a larger debt forgiveness program. There are still quite a few questions to be answered, but here are some key points to know.
Pell vs. non-Pell: Loan forgiveness of up to $10,000 is available to non-Pell Grant recipients and up to $20,000 for Pell Grant recipients. Only Federal student loans are able to be forgiven. Loans held through a private lender are ineligible for this program.
No ...Read More
Are You Preparing to Retire Early?
Is your dream to retire before you turn 60? How about before you turn 45? If so, you might want to think twice before you make the move. If your heart is set on leaving work early, be sure you leave with the right mindset and the right estimation of your financial potential, because you may not want to un-retire.
Retire with a realistic picture of your income needs.In late 2006, the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College surveyed 400 private sector employers. ...Read More
What is the Best Place to Put My Excess Cash?
Do you have extra cash and are wondering whether you should save it, pay off debt, or invest it? Maximizing the use of excess cash is a balancing act, where the answer is different in every situation. This article breaks down how to prioritize debt paydown, and how holding too much cash may be hurting you more than it’s helping you.
When deciding how to invest, you must always consider whether the money needs to be accessible at any point in the near future. This will tell ...Read More
The Cost Of Doing Business
These have been 2022's monthly returns in the S&P 500:
January -5.2% February -3.0% March +3.7% April -8.7% May +0.2% June -8.3% July +9.2%There have been three months this year when the market fell by -5% or more, that didn’t happen once in 2021 and we saw it twice in 2020. There were zero -5% or worse months in all of 2017, 2016, 2014, or 2013. Down -5% months do not happen very often, however, they are not out of the ordinary. Over the past 96 years, on ...Read More
The 13 Best Quotes about Investing
There’s so much to learn about investing. One of the best ways to understand the industry is to study some of the great investors and purveyors of financial knowledge. Here, we share 13 quotes by philosophers, businesspeople, and investors. We hope you learn something new and enjoy studying the history, context, and meaning behind these insightful quotes.
1. "An investment in knowledge pays the best interest." — Benjamin Franklin
This is such a good quote because it ...Read More
In the News - Stephen Featured on New Planner Podcast - Fiduciary Duty
Fiduciary Duty
Recently I was invited to speak on the New Planner Podcast about how I ended up with Mills Wealth Advisors and why I chose Mills Wealth Advisors over the ...Read More
MWA 2nd Quarter Market Update - Unprecedented Times
As most of you are aware, 2022 has been a tough investing climate in the market. It is rare that both stocks and bonds do poorly at the same time. The last time this happened was almost 2 decades ago in 1994, and only bonds ended the year down. However, it’s the first time in at least 50 years that stocks, ...Read More
How Markets Across the World Performed in the Second Quarter of 2022
Each quarter we put together a PowerPoint detailing how different markets performed over the last quarter. You will notice that in Quarter 2 of 2022 ALL markets were down. The US Market was down 16.70% while the International Developed Market was down 14.66% and the Emerging Market was down the least at 11.45%. Global Real ...Read More