What’s Fueling the Drop in Oil Prices?
On the New York Mercantile Exchange, a barrel of light sweet crude is currently worth well under $60. Prices have dropped more than 25% in a month and almost 45% year-over-year. What is behind this freefall? How long will prices keep dropping, and who does this development hurt and benefit?1
What’s Your Financial Health Score? Can a 5-question test predict how wealthy you will become?
In the future, will you become wealthier or poorer? Who knows, right? It seems like you would need a crystal ball to really answer that question given life’s up and downs. What if the answer is right in front of you? What if you can determine it from your present financial behaviors?
IRS Raises Retirement Plan Contribution Limits
Roth & traditional IRAs won’t get 2015 COLAs, but other plans will. Provided by Marc Aarons @Money Managers inc. A little inflation means a little adjustment. As the Consumer Price Index is up 1.7% over the last 12 months, the federal government is giving Social Security benefits a 1.7% boost for 2015 and lifting annual […]
Ebola Fears Weigh on Wall Street: How will the market contend with a major unknown?
What is the Ebola virus doing to stocks? That depends on who you ask. While the threat of another European recession, rapidly falling oil prices and the oncoming end of QE3 all had a hand in the selloff that intensified this week, the Ebola virus – a great unknown – sent a definite shudder through Wall Street.
How the Thrift Savings Plan Stacks Up
Comparing the TSP to other retirement savings vehicles. Provided by Marc Aarons @ Money Managers Inc. Federal workers and military personnel are offered a supplemental retirement savings plan to complement their pensions – the Thrift Savings Plan, or TSP. Just how well does it measure up to other forms of popular retirement accounts? Picture a 401(k) or 403(b) with five fund choices. In a nutshell, that is what the TSP resembles. Does this sound limiting? Whether[…]
After QE3 Ends: Can stocks keep their momentum once the Federal Reserve quits easing?
“Easing without end” will finally end. According to its June policy meeting minutes, the Federal Reserve plans to wrap up QE3 this fall. Barring economic turbulence, the central bank’s ongoing stimulus effort will conclude on schedule, with a last $15 billion cut to zero being authorized at the October 28-29 Federal Open Market Committee meeting.1,2 So when might the Fed start tightening? As the Fed has pledged to keep short-term interest rates near zero for[…]
Health Insurance DROP DEAD Date! Call Me
Health Insurance: If you did not sign up for health insurance through covered california or through your employee plan. YOU can still sign up by calling me and I can help you until April 15th. If you do not have health insurance by April 15th , you will get penalized. Either $95 or 1% of […]
RMD Precautions & Options
Just what is an RMD? After you turn 70½, the IRS requires you to withdraw some of the money in most retirement savings accounts each year. These withdrawals are officially called Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs).1
Will the Fed Raise Interest Rates Earlier Than Assumed?
Wall Street skips a beat on three words. The words were “around six months,” and they were spoken by Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen at the Federal Open Market Committee’s March 19 press conference. Those three words sent the Dow south 190 points; it lost 114 points on the trading day.1,2
Taking Advantage of the Provisions of Health Care Reform
Provided by Marc Aarons Certified Insurance Agent @ Money Managers Inc. Politics aside, how could coverage improve for you & your loved ones? Health care reform has many fans and many detractors. Amid all the sound and fury, the plain facts risk being blurred. So here is a look at where the reforms stand, and what they potentially offer you.