Regardless of the outcome of mid-term elections, the winner historically has been investors. Will 2014 be any different? Liz Ann Sonders and her team at Schwab offer an analysis. If part of your portfolio is invested in bonds, you’ve doubtlessly experienced some stress in the current low yield environment. Rather than move to short term or long term instruments, however, the best approach may be somewhere in the middle. Vanguard makes the case for duration diversification. Despite the years we’ve been in the digital age, most people are still not planning properly for willing their digital assets. If you don’t share access to them in your estate plans, your heirs may not know they exist. Digital estate planning expert Jamie Hopkins explains.
And The Winner Is…Investors?- Fundamental support for US stocks continues to look solid in the view of Liz Ann Sonders and her team at Charles Schwab. Employment is improving, with the Department of Labor reporting another 214,000 jobs were added in October, while the unemployment rate fell to 5.8%. We believe we are getting to the point where wages should begin to accelerate a bit, which has been a largely missing ingredient from the current recovery.
http://www.schwab.com/public/schwab/nn/articles/Market-Perspective?cmp=em-QYD
The Case For Duration Diversification– “Rather than shifting drastically one way or abandoning bonds altogether, investors should employ a broadly diversified strategy across duration buckets, which will allow them to potentially benefit if rates rise or fall,” said Ryan Rich, an investment analyst with Vanguard Investment Strategy Group. “No one knows which direction rates will head, or how fast they’ll go, but we do know that bonds can provide diversification in times of equity stress. While not all bonds are alike, a broadly diversified bond fund with intermediate duration can offer that ballast.” https://advisors.vanguard.com/VGApp/iip/site/advisor/research/article/ArticleTemplate.xhtml?iigbundle=IWE_InvComDurationDiversification&sub=1746129929&st=R&oeaut=eFaujksDtX
Don’t Take Your Passwords To The Grave– When online assets — like investment or bank accounts — are left out of estate planning, often heirs won’t know they exist. Jamie Hopkins explains the need to plan for the disposition of digital assets post-death or incapacity.
http://www.thinkadvisor.com/2014/10/22/dont-let-clients-take-their-passwords-to-the-grave
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John R. Day, Bill Ennis, Stephanie Davidson and Matt Heller