Okay, so it's not the latest - this video is from back in March: http://www.morningstar.com/cover/videocenter.aspx?id=330323 (I hope it's available to non-subscribers) But it's a short video, worth watching, I think. Harold Evensky is one of the big names in financial planning - lots...

This useful site has been brought up before on this forum: http://www.bls.gov/cex/#tables Some may care to look at the tables showing quintiles of income. These have very detailed averages of expenditures covering many common categories. It may provide an easy method of comparing one's...

I'm a US citizen with retirement coming in the next few months and I need some advice on whether to take my pension as a lump sum or an annuitized payment. The people I’d typically ask for advice all have a vested interest in one choice or the other, so I’d like to get the collected wisdom of the...

Someone from my bank called recently offereing to up the interest rate on my savings account from just over 1% to 4%. I asked him what was the catch and he said none and that I didn't even have to maintain a minimum balance. Claims this is the latest trend in banking. We have a meeting set for a...

Just looking for some feedback: Simple partnership, no non-partner employees. Income, etc all passed to partners via K-1. Several partners are s-corps - individuals who've incorporated as a wrapper around themselves and the s-corp therefore receives the K-1 and passes the income as wages to...

Hi, About how much should we allocate for a Medicare supplement plan? We are doing some planning for when my wife retires in two years. Assume she will be 62, I will be 67, and our income will be about $100K (we can afford a good plan), and we will be living outside the US for at least 4...

I am not in the US. Index funds are very new in my country & the index fund market isn't very mature & there isn't so much data about index funds here. - There may be different indexes for a particular stock market, so how would one arrive at what is the index best suited for an index fund. - How...

Any comments on the new retail oriented funds that are being set up for this? Pimco says it can implement a 15% loss per year floor for a tiny cost of 25 - 50 basis points using the same techniques as hedging funds (articles talk about Pimco Tail Risk Hedging Fund 1, but I'm not sure that is...

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/07/business/economy/07greenspan.html?hp I am struck by Alan Greenspan's remarks in today's NY Times. I am not a disciple of his. Yet I would not have predicted him to be so outspoken on the role health care spending, for one, is taking in this Depression. His mention...

I am a real dunce when it comes to real estate. I mean, I seem to understand nothing. How much should one spend on maintenance of one's home? (As a percentage of purchase price?) "Maintenance" is, in my conception of things, incidental stuff like brooms, some garden tools, some tools for leaky...

I'm almost sure this is a stupid question, but it seems like if I paid that portion of my mortgage (my equity), that portion belongs to me in some sense. Why do I have to "borrow" from it and pay interest on it, if it's already my own money? Thanks, Rog --- news://freenews.netfront.net/ -...

I am from India. We do not have much of a bond market here. Most of the bonds are issued by the public sector (Govt owned utilities etc) companies. Regular Companies raise money by issuing Term Deposits (CDs) of 1 to 3 years which are subscribed to by people who are interested. Typically they...

In the ongoing saga of how banks view the world, this article on Bloomberg today caught my attention. There is a very glaring absence of the "attorneys" who so vociferously and courageously champion shareholder and investor rights. There was no mention of Whackovia that I saw. I excerpted a few...

I think it would be wise to put some of the nest egg into accounts overseas, for example Switzerland and Australia, to hedge against dollar asset devaluation. I have never done this before and am looking for advice on ways to do this. I know the obvious way is to travel to each country and...

It looks like there are 10-year corporate bonds being offered at around 4.5 - 5% by banks such as Goldman Sachs and Bank of America. Would folks here recommend buying these in a retirement account, or would they be considered too risky given the current economic environment? I've never bought...

From an article on OnWallStreet.com: Congressman Richard Neal, D-Mass., has introduced legislation that would allow companies to set up automatic payroll deposit Individual Retirement Accounts, or Auto IRAs, for workers who do not have access to employer-provided qualified pension...

I can start taking a pension after my 55th birthday, which is coming up in the next 6 months. This is a old-fashioned company penson. There is no cost of living increase for the pension, once it starts it is fixed for life. If I wait one year, the monthly amount goes up about 5.4%, two years,...

This is one of the first pieces I've seen that documents prices for medical services. I hope it may be helpful to some for more accurate planning purposes. http://noir.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aZ0McyDpXF7A&pos=10 It's interesting that in all other business that I can think of at...

See http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/24/your-money/401ks-and-similar-plans/24money.html A New York Times letter-to-the-editor writer commented further today: "There are two areas where further inquiry would be useful... One is 401(k) plans invested in funds of funds, usually owned by the...

Does anyone have a sense of what (if any) new regulations will be placed on financial planners?