This summer has been filled with helping coach my son’s baseball team. It’s fun teaching young men how to work together as a cohesive team. There are challenges with managing egos and emotions that can get in the way of performance, but when the team clicks, it is something to watch. The team runs likes a well-oiled machine when each player understands his role and responsibilities at his specific position… Read More
Trust and Transparency
I recently finished reading The Big Short by Michael Lewis, which explores the key people and events leading up to the market crash of 2008. One of the surface issues that lead to the crash was that lending standards for mortgages were extremely loose in the mid-2000s. One of the examples of those loose standards referenced in the book was a Mexican strawberry picker in California who was making $14,000 a year,… Read More
What if I Live to 100?
I recently listened to a presentation by Katherine Roy, Chief Retirement Strategist and Head of Individual Retirement for JP Morgan Asset Management. She researches, tracks, and publishes retirement trends and statistics. One of the more fascinating topics she highlighted in her presentation was longevity. According to Katherine’s findings, the current longevity statistics point to the fact that Americans are living longer. One example, for a couple who has attained age… Read More
IRA to IRA Rollovers
Some of you have expressed concern about recent articles in the press regarding IRA rollovers, and granted, the terminology in these articles can be confusing. The IRS now interprets the “once per year” IRA rollover rule to mean that an IRA owner can make one and only one IRA-to-IRA rollover during a 365-day period no matter how many IRAs that person owns. Where It Applies This IRA rollover ruling applies… Read More
The Value of Trust
Several weeks ago our family enjoyed a great week of vacation in the beautiful Smoky Mountains, near Pigeon Forge, TN. During vacations such as this we like to incorporate some adventure activity. Several years ago we went bungee-jumping in Canada. This time we decided to go ziplining. After researching, Legacy Mountain Ziplines provided the highest, fastest and longest lines in the region. Seven different ziplines up to 450 feet high,… Read More
Pursuing Contentment
Either through our own experience or the account of someone we know, we can all recall people who have much less than we do, or who live under unthinkable circumstances, yet their lives are characterized by joyful contentment. I believe contentment is a universal pursuit. Since the desire to be content permeates every area of our lives, let’s take a closer look at contentment. The pursuit of contentment involves choices… Read More
Find Your Mentor
At Master’s we get together once a month and discuss a few chapters from a book that we have been collectively reading. It’s a chance to gain insight and best practices from what we read. We recently finished the book, The Leadership Secrets of Billy Graham. It is rare that a leadership book has so much information in it that is encouraging, inspiring and convicting. Here are a few impactful concepts… Read More
A Long-Term Point of View
Each morning I like to scan the financial news to get the pulse of the market. I usually try to stay away from the opinion pieces, but every once in a while a catchy headline draws me in. “Economist guru says we are heading for another recession!” “Highly respected professor insists the current market run will continue!” I usually think to myself, “How can all of these intelligent, well informed… Read More
I’ll Tell You What I Miss!
I was reading a sports article this winter, and I came across this quote from Scott Rolen, a former Major League Baseball third baseman. He started his career with the Philadelphia Phillies, the team I enjoy following. He recently retired from baseball, and during this year’s spring training he was asked what he misses about baseball since his retirement. “I’ll tell you what I miss,” he said. “I miss the… Read More
The Risk-Free Investment
You may know that a jackalope is a creature similar to a jackrabbit with antelope horns or deer antlers and sometimes a pheasant’s tail. (You may not know that a group of jackalopes is known as a flaggerdoot.) “What,” you might ask, “does a jackalope have to do with the topic of investing?” We’ll get to that later. In the world of investing, it is important to remember that risk… Read More
