Private Wealth Management Insights

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WISE MONEY – Do a Reality Check on Your Retirement Finances

Your poor savings habits might stem from ignoring the problem or, when you do think of it, slipping into denial. Well, denial is not just a river in Egypt. If you're fooling yourself about your retirement resources, you're probably rationalizing a lot. If this describes you, you might want to examine your emotions on the subject. Are these emotions lining up to justify your lack of action to save for retirement (or your all-too-active spending habits)? If so, you may be using some of these rationalizations too.
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Greenspring Advisors Financial Planning Insights

“Fight The Fights That Are Worth Fighting”

Do you work with a financial advisor? If so, is that advisor required to put your interest ahead of his/her own? If you are like 99% of other investors out there, you probably don’t know for sure. The vast majority of advisors are brokers or have the option to operate as a broker, and therefore don’t have to act in their client’s best interest.
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Greenspring Advisors Financial Planning Insights

There Is No Such Thing As “Long-Term” In Tax Planning

I often read articles that talk about the virtues of long-term tax planning.  This could be in the form of Roth IRA conversions, charitable planning, or gifting strategies.  In general, most of these articles are correct in their reasoning, but they tend to under-emphasize one important item.
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Greenspring Advisors Investment Planning Insights

You Are Not A Contrarian

It seems like every investor (amateur or professional) bills themselves as a contrarian.  They will tell you that they tend to buy unloved or unwanted companies when they are trading for a great bargain.  The simple fact is that this is very hard.  The Motley Fool has a great article on this very topic.
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Greenspring Advisors Investment Planning Insights

They’re Back: Revisiting Interest Rates

It has been a couple of months since we’ve addressed interest rates, and today we find that the 10-year Treasury bond (often considered the benchmark of bond yields) has hit 3% again.  With the recent economic data surprising to the upside, there is a possibility for rates to rise.
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Greenspring Advisors Financial Planning Insights Greenspring Advisors Investment Planning Insights

The Stock Market Does Not Equal The Economy

The economic data coming out these last few weeks have been spectacular.  Whether it be employment, manufacturing, or consumer spending, the economy really seems to be on a roll.  Before you buy some stocks as an early Christmas present, it is important to remember that the economy is not the stock market.
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Greenspring Advisors Corporate Retirement Investments Insights

What Is The Best Vehicle To Accumulate Wealth?

What is the best vehicle for accumulating long-term wealth?  This is a question worth thinking about as an investor, and a recent Gallup poll shows that only 37% of those surveyed believed that stocks were a good method for accumulating wealth.
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Greenspring Advisors Financial Planning Insights Greenspring Advisors Investment Planning Insights

The Predictive Power (Or Lack Thereof) Of Stock Market Indicators

There is really no indicator that we know of that can predict stock market performance.  If there ever were, it would very quickly be arbitraged away since markets tend to be fairly efficient.  Merrill Lynch uses a metric they call the “Sell Side Indicator” to determine future stock performance.
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Greenspring Advisors Corporate Retirement Investments Insights

Beating The Market: Luck Or Skill?

There is a great post at the Big Picture blog about whether luck or skill is the determining factor to outperforming the market. The short answer: luck. Research has shown this to be the case, but some other points in the article are worth reviewing.
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