Quitting Your Job? Be Aware Of COBRA

Quitting Your Job? Be Aware Of COBRA

According to eHealth almost 50% of Americans receive subsidized group health insurance through their employer. Given the phenomenally complex health insurance marketplace one has to navigate these days, not to mention the cost, that’s a huge benefit. But what happens if you want to change employers? Thanks to the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (also…
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How Wealthy Are You?

Have you ever wondered how you stack up financially against other Americans? The Federal Reserve has just completed the 2022 survey of consumer finances (SCF) that it has been carrying out every three years since 1989. It provides a ton of comprehensive data covering practically anything you’d want to know about the financial standing of…
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The Benefits Of Low Volatility

Investing involves volatility. The higher the expected return, the greater the volatility. This is axiomatic. You can’t avoid it but you can mitigate it, as I wrote in a previous column. And it turns out that reducing volatility has a number of benefits for investors. First, there’s what’s known as volatility drag. This is a…
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When Is It Better To Underperform The Market?

That doesn’t sound right, does it? Who would ever want to underperform the stock market? Shouldn’t the goal be to consistently beat the market? That would be great, but how easy is it to do? S&P Global produces an annual report called SPIVA (https://www.spglobal.com/spdji/en/documents/spiva/spiva-us-mid-year-2023.pdf) which compares how actively managed funds – those that attempt to…
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RMD Rules For Inherited IRAs Remain Confusing

It used to be relatively simple. Prior to 2020, if you inherited an IRA from someone, rather than having to liquidate the account and pay taxes on the balance, you were allowed to “stretch” the annual required minimum distributions (RMDs) over your life expectancy. Then came the SECURE Act (2020) and the IRS interpretation of…
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It’s A Dangerous World Out There

The U.S. Justice Department recently released the 2022 FBI Elder Fraud Report. It does not make for enjoyable reading. There were almost 90,000 victims of fraud over the age of 60 last year. And they lost in aggregate over $3.1 billion, an increase of 84% over 2021. What are some of the biggest scams and…
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