Managing your trip in a risky environment
Risk is sometimes the elephant in the investing room, especially for retirees. People understand stocks as ownership and bonds as debt, but risk is hard to grasp and instinctively dangerous.
Later Living has recently published four posts on risk. Risk and high returns go together, so retirees who want high returns must deal with risk. Here are the four earlier posts knit together into one risk story: Continue reading
Afternoon at a long-term care facility
Retirement might be easier if spending needs stayed nearly constant from year-to-year, but they don’t. Long-term care, motor homes, family members in need, and other special plans require lumps of cash at particular times. Continue reading
When retirees get to their middle 80s, most don’t want to or can’t stay physically active. Instead they relax, take up hobbies or devote full-time to television. Their conversations often concern their health problems. But there are exceptions, like Ms. Ola Coombs.
Ola had always wanted to have her own quilt shop and she got her chance at age 79. Ola’s Quilt Shop in Lavonia, Georgia opened in May, 2006. This year Ola will turn 87. Continue reading
“Warren, isn’t it? You’re Warren, right?” asked John.
“Yes, how are you doing, John.”
“Ahhh, today is a good day for me. My memory is mostly here,” he said as he continued to get dressed. John is in his early 60s. Continue reading
Investment risk is good in that it accompanies greater long-term wealth but it is bad if investors sell during a downdraft. Stocks are riskier (more volatile) than bonds yet offer more long-term gain.
Should retirees dial back their risk exposure to, say, 30% stocks, as is sometimes recommended, or can they carry much more risk, perhaps up to 70% stocks? The answer follows their goals and plans. Continue reading
Risk in stocks and bonds–Seventeen years of returns
When should someone retire? The answer may be fraught with danger if the retirement portfolio is overly weighted to stocks or other risky investments. There is one small window of time surrounding the retirement date in which sharp declines in stock values can ruin retirement. Continue reading
Drew, Alex, Devon
A pond occupies the center of our neighborhood, and a goose and two ducks live there. They have become, well, friends. In most places, geese hang with geese and ducks with ducks, so our pond, with an inter-species friendship going on, is a little more interesting. Continue reading
Risky? These women compete in a roller derby where they skate, block and score on a concrete floor. There is risk—in the sense of loss or injury. “No pain, no gain,” analogizes the SEC, which is almost a sports metaphor: play hard, risk injury and you may win.
There are standard narratives about investing that lead people to particular strategies. Risk, we’re told, infects all investments, and it is often viewed as potential injury or loss. Continue reading
This gallery contains 26 photos.
Mention the Cumberland Gap and many people immediately think of Daniel Boone who blazed the Wilderness Trail through the gap. European-American settlers then migrated along the trail into what is now Kentucky and Tennessee, but Native Americans traveled through the … Continue reading
The photo gallery below augments yesterday’s observations about eastern Kentucky. The photos highlight what visitors see traveling through the region, and some of the people they may meet if they stop to get acquainted. I hope you enjoy them.