Welcome to a new week here on the Retirement Quick Tips podcast. I’m your host Ashley Micciche, co-owner of True North Retirement Advisors, an independent financial advisory practice managing $340 million in client assets. I’m a Chartered Retirement Planning Counselor, and I started this podcast because I love helping people just like you gain clarity and make a plan for the retirement you envision. This week on the podcast, I’m taking a little summer break. I live in Oregon, in the suburbs of Portland, and summers here are amazing. With 3 little kids at home, I’ve decided to give myself a little extra free time in the month of July. I will be back with new episodes on August 1st, but in the meantime, I’ll be sharing with you a free resource each week on the podcast. This week’s free resource is an under-the-hood portfolio analysis. An under the hood portfolio analysis will look under the hood of your portfolio. The analysis will show you how your portfolio is allocated among stocks, bonds, and cash; how much you have invested in each sector like tech and healthcare, and how well diversified your portfolio is across different regions as well. The analysis will even show concentrations in your portfolio of your top 10 stock holdings in your various investment holdings. You’ll receive a portfolio analysis report, as well as some expert insight from yours truly on how you can improve your portfolio, and any red flags that I see which could derail your investment portfolio. The analysis is free & confidential with no strings attached. If you’d like an under-the-hood portfolio analysis report, just send me an email to ashleym@truenorthra.com. I’ll send you an access link to a secure folder for you to upload copies of your investment account statements. Again that’s ashleym@truenorthra.com. That’s it for today. Thanks for listening! Be sure to come back again next Monday for the final week of the summer hiatus, where I’ll be sharing with you one more brand new resource. My name is Ashley Micciche and this is the Retirement Quick Tips podcast. ---------- >>> Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2DI2LSP >>> Subscribe on Amazon Alexa: https://amzn.to/2xRKrCs >>> Visit the podcast page: https://truenorthra.com/podcast/ ---------- Tags: retirement, investing, money, finance, financial planning, retirement planning, saving money, personal finance
Welcome to a new week here on the Retirement Quick Tips podcast. I’m your host Ashley Micciche, co-owner of True North Retirement Advisors, an independent financial advisory practice managing $340 million in client assets. I’m a Chartered Retirement Planning Counselor, and I started this podcast because I love helping people just like you gain clarity and make a plan for the retirement you envision. This week on the podcast, I’m taking a little summer break.I live in Oregon, in the suburbs of Portland, and summers here are amazing. With 3 little kids at home, I’ve decided to give myself a little extra free time in the month of July. This month, our plans include a few overnights at cub scout camp with my daughter, checking out a baseball game, picking blueberries, taking my kids to the pool and the splash pad, roasting smores, going golfing, and most importantly, consuming more slurpees than the legal limit in the month of July. I will be back with new episodes on August 1st, but in the meantime, I’ll be sharing with you a free resource each week on the podcast. This week, I’m sharing the most popular resource that I’ve given away before on the podcast, and then for each of the next 2 weeks I’ll share with you 2 new resources that I haven’t shared with you before on the podcast. I’m really excited to share these resources with you, but you’ll need to check in each week if you’d like the other resources. This week’s free resource - by far the most requested on the podcast - is my age-based asset allocation cheat sheet. It’s a one-page guide to help you select the right mix of stocks and bonds in your portfolio based on your age. I’m a big believer in asset allocation as the foundation of every investor’s portfolio. Making sure we have the ideal mix of stocks and bonds is always the starting place with my own clients when determining how we should invest. Other factors, like risk are also important, but age trumps all. If you would like to get my age-based asset allocation cheat sheet that helps you determine the right mix of stocks and bonds based on your age, just email me at ashleym@truenorthra.com. That’s ashleym@truenorthra.com and I’ll send that to you so you can figure out for yourself what mix is right for you. That’s it for today. Thanks for listening! Come on back next Monday for a brand new free resource. My name is Ashley Micciche...and this is the Retirement Quick Tips podcast. ---------- >>> Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2DI2LSP >>> Subscribe on Amazon Alexa: https://amzn.to/2xRKrCs >>> Visit the podcast page: https://truenorthra.com/podcast/ ---------- Tags: retirement, investing, money, finance, financial planning, retirement planning, saving money, personal finance
It’s Sunday, which means...it’s recap time here on the Retirement Quick Tips Podcast This week the theme was: Mid-Year Commentary & Outlook In case you missed any episodes, here’s what I covered this week: The Price Of Investing Stock Market Mid-Year 2022 Update Bond Market Mid-Year 2022 Update U.S. Economy Mid-Year 2022 Update Prepping Your Investment Portfolio For Continued Turmoil The most important takeaway from this week is: things feel gloomy right now, and I believe the stock market and bond markets are in for worse to come. While I wish that it Tomorrow is the start of a hiatus for the podcast. I’m taking the rest of July off, but I’ll be back in August with some new episodes. I’m taking this time off to line up some guests for the show and I am working on creating a resources page on the website, where you can download things like the retirement success forecaster and the asset allocation cheat sheet on demand, anytime. So stay tuned for some updates coming in August, and enjoy the July break from the podcast. Thank you so much for listening this week! If this podcast is valuable for you, please share the show with a friend, a neighbor, your brother, or co-worker who is getting close to retirement. Just go to your favorite podcasting app, hit the share icon, then text or email the show link to someone you know who is eyeing retirement. Thanks for sharing the love and spreading the word. I hope you have a blessed Sunday. My name is Ashley Micciche, this is the Retirement Quick Tips Podcast. ---------- >>> Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2DI2LSP >>> Subscribe on Amazon Alexa: https://amzn.to/2xRKrCs >>> Visit the podcast page: https://truenorthra.com/podcast/ ---------- Tags: retirement, investing, money, finance, financial planning, retirement planning, saving money, personal finance
The theme this week on the Retirement Quick Tips Podcast is mid-year commentary & outlook. Today, I’m talking about what to do about the fact that the stock market, bond market, and the economy are all in the doldrums. The most important thing to remind yourself of during gloomy times is: this too shall pass. Volatility in the markets and declines of 20% or more are a healthy and normal part of any economy and are unavoidable. If you think that you can avoid the pain by selling, think again. You have to sell at the top when everyone else feels euphoric, and buy at the bottom when everyone else has lost all hope in the future. You have to be right both times, and I’ve never heard of any investor who was successful at timing the markets, ever! So if you’re going to stay invested, which I darn sure hope you are, what can you do? First of all, look at your overall mix of stocks and bonds. If you have too little in stocks at the moment, do some selective rebalancing to take advantage of the current stock market decline by adding to stocks where appropriate. This rebalancing may only be small and on the margins, but adding to stocks after a 20% decline is a great time to start rebalancing. If you have excess cash that should be invested, start putting it to work. I like investing over a period of 6-12 months from this point, which I think is prudent. If you invest the cash in equal amounts over that time, you’ll be fully invested by the time this bear market is getting long in the tooth by historical norms, if it continues that long. With the average stock down 30% this year, it may be tempted to buy just anything on sale. Don’t fall for the temptation to buy the ugly yellow trucker hat that you’ll never wear, because it was $3. $3 is still too much to pay if its an ugly hat that you’ll never wear. The same is true for stocks. No matter what, always be discerning and look for quality. I continue to prefer high-quality, dividend growing stocks, mutual funds, and ETFs as the core of my client’s portfolios. I’m a strong believer that this tilt toward predictable, resilient, and financially healthy companies with strong balance sheets and growing dividends will pay off for clients in the long-run. These companies have a history of weathering economic downturns exceptionally well, and coming out the other side in a stronger position, since many of their less healthy competitors fall away in a recession.Those are the kind of bargains you want to hunt for. In bond portfolios, I continue to prefer bonds with high quality and stable credit ratings on the shorter-term end of the spectrum (less than 5-year maturity), floating rate bonds, and treasury-inflation protected bonds. This bond allocation with a tilt toward shorter term bonds will help you re-invest sooner for higher income if interest rates continue to rise, which I expect that they will.. As a result of these stock and bond portfolio allocations, most of our clients’ portfolios are more stable than their comparable benchmarks, which is encouraging. And that’s what you’re looking for too if you’re like most people nearing retirement - stability, income, and more predictable returns. That’s it for today. Thanks for listening! My name is Ashley Micciche and this is the Retirement Quick Tips podcast. ---------- >>> Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2DI2LSP >>> Subscribe on Amazon Alexa: https://amzn.to/2xRKrCs >>> Visit the podcast page: https://truenorthra.com/podcast/ ---------- Tags: retirement, investing, money, finance, financial planning, retirement planning, saving money, personal finance
The theme this week on the Retirement Quick Tips Podcast is mid-year commentary & outlook. Today, I’m talking about the Mid-Year Update for the US economy. I am recording today’s episode 1 day before GDP figures are released for the 2nd quarter, but if I were a betting woman, I would put money on the US economy already being in a recession. By the time you listen to this episode, I’ll have either been proven right or wrong, but I think that the U.S. economy is already in a recession, which is defined as a business cycle contraction and a general decline in economic activity. Two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth are required for an official recession. GDP growth was already negative in the first quarter of 2022, so I’m holding my breath to see if that decline continues with this current quarter ending in June, which would officially put the U.S. economy in a recession. There are many reasons to be optimistic that an upcoming recession could be mild and short-lived, but I think it will be still be painful for many Americans, since the Fed is going to have less options to inject monetary stimulus into the economy to stabilize a downturn. Remember the massive stimulus intended to save the economy in 2008 (i.e. QE, tax cuts, and TARP) and in 2020 (CARES Act, PPP, etc.)? The U.S. government and the Fed don’t have these tools in their toolbox in 2022, because any additional stimulus would counteract efforts to reduce inflation, which will still take a while to abate even if we are already in a recession. And if you’re wondering what to do about all of this, tune in tomorrow, where I’ll share with you how to prepare your investment portfolio for possibly worse to come. That’s it for today. Thanks for listening! My name is Ashley Micciche and this is the Retirement Quick Tips podcast. ---------- >>> Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2DI2LSP >>> Subscribe on Amazon Alexa: https://amzn.to/2xRKrCs >>> Visit the podcast page: https://truenorthra.com/podcast/ ---------- Tags: retirement, investing, money, finance, financial planning, retirement planning, saving money, personal finance
The theme this week on the Retirement Quick Tips Podcast is mid-year commentary & outlook. Today, I’m providing an update on bonds for all you bond investors listening. What’s especially difficult about this current downturn is that even many conservative investors who are tilted more toward bonds in their portfolio are also experiencing double digit losses in their portfolios this year. Not only are stocks down 20%, but bonds are down too, and cash is no place to hide because inflation is so high. The US Aggregate bond Index is a broad benchmark designed to track the performance of the publicly issued U.S.investment-grade debt. When looking at how bonds are holding up this year, it’s a great place to look. And unfortunately, most investors don’t like what they see: the index is down more than 10% this year. It’s no surprise that bonds are struggling this year. The Fed has been forced to get aggressive at raising interest rates due to inflation, and rising interest rates are bad news for bond investors - especially rates that rise quickly and to a large magnitude like we just say last month with the Fed raising rates by .75% at one time. An important concept to always remember is that bond prices and interest rates have an inverse relationship. So if interest rates are going down like they have spent most of the last 30 years doing, bond prices will increase. On the flipside, when interest rates go up, like they are right now, bond prices drop, and the more rates rise and the faster they rise, the more bonds get hammered. The length of time between now and when your bonds mature has a big influence on how your bond portfolio is holding up at the moment. Bonds that are many years away from their maturity dates - 10 years or more, are getting absolutely hammered this year. On the other hand, bonds that mature later this year have been pretty stable. Now if you own a lot of bonds, or even some longer term bonds, that doesn’t mean you should abandon your bond portfolio, but it does present an opportunity to reposition your bond portfolio, which I’ll talk more about on Saturday, when I talk about how we’re investing in this current market environment. That’s it for today. Thanks for listening! My name is Ashley Micciche and this is the Retirement Quick Tips podcast. --------- >>> Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2DI2LSP >>> Subscribe on Amazon Alexa: https://amzn.to/2xRKrCs >>> Visit the podcast page: https://truenorthra.com/podcast/ ---------- Tags: retirement, investing, money, finance, financial planning, retirement planning, saving money, personal finance
The theme this week on the Retirement Quick Tips Podcast is mid-year commentary & outlook. Today, I’m talking about the stock market. As I record today’s episode, the S&P 500 is down roughly 20% so far this year, and the top 3 headlines on CNN’s Markets page today read: Consumers are feeling less confident about the US economy as prices keep rising Home prices are still going strong, but momentum is slowing Analysts accuse Bed Bath & Beyond of turning off AC in stores to save money as sales plummet Sheesh, talk about doom and gloom! This has been a very difficult year for the vast majority of investors, and there haven’t been many places to hide. The average U.S. stock is down 30% this year. The bond market in aggregate is down more than 11% this year, and cash holdings are losing value in real terms due to the erosion of high inflation. Investors right now are oscillating between fear and panic, which means that we still have a ways to go before the current bear market bottoms out. Volatility will likely remain high and further losses are probable. Even though the stock market is unpredictable, it actually follows a very predictable emotional pattern. As I said, I think most investors are still in the fear and panic stage, which means we are not yet at the worst of this downturn. Understanding market emotions is helpful, since it’s inevitable that we must go through a bottoming process that is characterized by capitulation, despondence, and depression – and unfortunately, I don’t think we’re there yet. Every significant downturn in stocks follows this same predictable pattern - every time. It may take just days to pass through the fear and panic stage, but other times like in 2008, it can take months. How long before the market bottoms out? That’s anyone’s guess and it depends on where the economy goes from here, which I’ll talk more about in a couple days when I discuss the economic update. Since World War II, bear markets last an average of 13 months from peak to trough and it took a total of 27 months to get back to breakeven. During that 13 month average drop, the S&P 500 index dropped an average of 33%. We are already nearly 6 months into the current bear market and have experienced about 2/3 of the typical decline already, so my message for you is to keep the long-term view in mind, and have patience while this bear market continues to go through a bottoming process. As I talked about yesterday, the price of investing is volatility, and dealing with a couple years of turmoil every 7-10 years in order to profit from those periods of growth and expansion, whose gains far outweigh the temporary losses we’re experiencing now. That’s it for today. Thanks for listening! My name is Ashley Micciche and this is the Retirement Quick Tips podcast. ---------- >>> Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2DI2LSP >>> Subscribe on Amazon Alexa: https://amzn.to/2xRKrCs >>> Visit the podcast page: https://truenorthra.com/podcast/ ---------- Tags: retirement, investing, money, finance, financial planning, retirement planning, saving money, personal finance
The theme this week on the Retirement Quick Tips Podcast is mid-year commentary & outlook. I’m currently reading a book called The Psychology of Money: Timeless Lessons on Wealth, Greed and Happiness by Morgan Housel. It’s an excellent book, and even though I haven’t finished it yet, I would easily put this in my top 5 books on money that I’ve ever read, and I highly recommend it. At some point, I’ll probably devote an entire weekly theme on the podcast to the lessons in the book, but while preparing to record this week’s podcast, I happened to be reading chapter 15, titled: Nothing’s Free, which was quite timely in light of this week’s theme. In this chapter, Housel describes the price of investing, which is volatility, and how important it is to accept this cost to be successful over the long-term. Here’s what Housel has to say: [excerpt from book] That’s it for today. Thanks for listening! My name is Ashley Micciche and this is the Retirement Quick Tips podcast. ---------- >>> Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2DI2LSP >>> Subscribe on Amazon Alexa: https://amzn.to/2xRKrCs >>> Visit the podcast page: https://truenorthra.com/podcast/ ---------- Tags: retirement, investing, money, finance, financial planning, retirement planning, saving money, personal finance
It’s Sunday, which means...it’s recap time here on the Retirement Quick Tips Podcast This week the theme was: Inflation Is Still Getting Worse! What To Do Now In case you missed any episodes, here’s what I covered this week: Drop All Unnecessary Expenses Stockpile Two Weeks Of Food & Necessities Pay Off High Interest Debt…FAST! Secure A HELOC Now Delay Retirement Until The Recovery Is Well Underway The most important takeaway from this week is: Inflation is still getting worse, and we seem to be teetering on the edge of recession - a devastating combo for many Americans finances. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t take steps within your control to keep inflation and a potential recession from causing a serious amount of financial stress and hardship for you. The key theme running throughout this week’s episodes is that the goal is to create breathing room in your finances. By unburdening debts and forgoing large expenses, you’ll be better able to keep up with rising costs. By securing a HELOC now, you’ll have a plan B for tapping additional savings in the event of a financial emergency or a job loss. By getting some extra food on your shelves, you’ll be able to go to the store less often or not at all for a brief period of time if things get a lot worse. And by delaying your plans for retirement, you’ll give your nest egg a chance to recover and increase the odds that you won’t run out of money in retirement. Tomorrow, come on back because we’re starting a brand new theme: Mid-Year Recap & Outlook. I’ll be sharing with you some commentary from our economic and market commentary newsletter that we send to our clients each quarter. I’ll recap what’s happened so far this year that’s impacted your retirement investment portfolio, and we’ll try to make some sense of where we could be headed from here. Thank you so much for listening this week! If this podcast is valuable for you, please share the show with a friend, a neighbor, your brother, or co-worker who is getting close to retirement. Just go to your favorite podcasting app, hit the share icon, then text or email the show link to someone you know who is eyeing retirement. Thanks for sharing the love and spreading the word. I hope you have a blessed Sunday. My name is Ashley Micciche, this is the Retirement Quick Tips Podcast. ---------- >>> Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2DI2LSP >>> Subscribe on Amazon Alexa: https://amzn.to/2xRKrCs >>> Visit the podcast page: https://truenorthra.com/podcast/ ---------- Tags: retirement, investing, money, finance, financial planning, retirement planning, saving money, personal finance
The theme this week on the Retirement Quick Tips Podcast is: Inflation Is Still Getting Worse! What To Do Now Today, I’m talking about delaying retirement until we come out the other side of what looks to be a near-certain recession. The last thing you want to do is retire into the teeth of an economic downturn and a cratering stock and bond market. Why does this matter so much? A well-documented concept that most investors are completely unaware of or don’t understand is the sequence of returns risk. This is the risk that you will have significant losses in your investments during the early years of retirement. The sequence matters here, and it matters a lot, because losses early in retirement are much more damaging than the same magnitude of losses experienced later in retirement - say 10 to 15 years into retirement. If your nest egg takes a 25-30% hit at the very beginning of retirement when you still need it to last 25 years or more, you don’t have the time to make up for those losses, if you retire during that time and at the same time you’re taking income from your portfolio that you now need for retirement. The nest egg shrinks even more because of your withdrawals, and you just significantly increased the odds of running out of money in retirement. So what should you do if you were planning to retire in 2022 or 2023. Unless you have well in excess of what you need to live on in retirement, the most prudent thing to do is to wait until the recovery is well-underway before you retire. Your portfolio doesn’t need to get back to it’s previous high-water mark, but it needs to be a lot closer to where it was than it likely is today, and if the markets and the economy continue to deteriorate, you’ll want to wait and see how bad it gets before you make any potentially irreversible decisions about retirement and starting to drawdown your assets, start social security, etc. If you already retired like so many Americans did during the last couple years, then you’ll want to re-evaluate your financial plan to make sure that the current downturn hasn’t jeopardized your retirement plans. And you’ll want to stress test your plan, so you’ll know how much more your portfolio can drop before changes are required. Consider ways to cut back or eliminate your withdrawals. That might mean going back to work part time, doing some consulting work, and like I mentioned earlier this week, cutting out all unnecessary expenses. That’s it for today. Thanks for listening! My name is Ashley Micciche and this is the Retirement Quick Tips podcast. ---------- >>> Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2DI2LSP >>> Subscribe on Amazon Alexa: https://amzn.to/2xRKrCs >>> Visit the podcast page: https://truenorthra.com/podcast/ ---------- Tags: retirement, investing, money, finance, financial planning, retirement planning, saving money, personal finance