John Kageleiry
Finance 101: Permanent Risk
Risk is always with us, and cannot be eliminated. Too much in safe bonds, and you run the possibility of losing to inflation and/or...
Finance 101: The role of luck
“Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.”
–Humphrey Bogart, “Casablanca”
In what may be one of...
Why a good financial plan is always wrong
“Every financial plan is wrong. They’re all shots in the dark. It’s impossible to predict the future, and there’s an almost infinite number of...
You never really know
I think it was 1993 when I met a potential client who wanted to discuss his financial situation. At that time, I worked for...
Finance 101: What kind of an investment is a home?
When people start thinking about buying their first home, their brains are inundated with all kinds of worthy questions. Some are quality of life...
Finance 101: It’s broken, and you’re dumb
No one likes to see their investments go down in value, but that happens. But when they do, does that make you bad or...
Finance 101: Target Date Funds
Retirement savers have, for forever and a day, been challenged by how to reasonably invest their savings. 401(k)s and IRAs have been the primary...
Finance 101: Back to normal
It’s almost the end of the year, and an eventful year it has been. Threats of trade wars, worries about a slowing economy, all...
Finance 101: How to help avoid elder financial abuse
America is growing older. Every day of the week, 10,000 people turn 65. This is what has been referred to as the “baby boom...
Finance 101: Roll or stay
Americans have a significant part of their retirement savings in defined contribution plans. Think 401(k)s and 403(b)s. And there are tens of millions of...
Finance 101: Required Minimum Distributions
As many Americans know, they will be required to take a mandatory minimum distribution from their tax deferred accounts at age 70.5. So what...
Finance 101: The end-of-history illusion
Over the long arc of time, things rarely stay the same. What was the steady rock of consistency yesterday is somehow irrelevant today. We...
Finance 101: When wildness lies in wait
“The real trouble with this world of ours is not that it is an unreasonable world, nor even that it is a reasonable one....
Finance 101: Control what you can control
In today’s hyper-connected information and news-cycle world, we are constantly buffeted with more, often contradictory, messages. Everything moves fast. We are subject to so...
Finance 101: Tax-efficient accounts
Over the past several years, the world of personal investments has moved steadily toward lower costs. The greater adoption of things like index mutual...
Finance 101: Ready for college costs? Maybe
The goal of attaining a college degree is deeply ingrained in the American dream. It’s both aspirational and practical. Almost 70 percent of high...
Finance 101: Enjoying life, now or later
I have often wondered why people, in general, seem unwilling to do any kind of actual financial planning for their later years. A short...
Time to give up on bonds?
I came across yet another article citing how high stock market valuations are. It uses something called Shiller’s CAPE ratio as a reason to...
Thoughts on the underappreciated merits of worry
With the most recent parabolic pyrotechnics in the stock market, a lot of people were feeling pretty good. It’s hard to blame them. What...
Finance 101: We get happier as we age
I have long followed Tadas Viskanta's excellent blog, Abnormal Returns . As an advisor and planner, I find it to be an excellent resource...