Money Culture

January 25, 2018

The stock market’s 19 percent climb in 2017 was nothing short of impressive. This year, it has gained another 6 percent.

This means that many boomers with 401(k)s are feeling a little more secure about retirement – at least for now. That more people feel they will be able to afford a vacation this summer with their children. And that Warren Buffett is getting richer even faster.

But one in two Americans isn’t at the party. According to the Survey of Consumer Finances in 2016, the Federal Reserve Board’s latest triennial survey and the most comprehensive look at Americans’ personal finances, 48 percent of U.S. families do not own equities.

Less surprising is how stock holdings break out at various income levels. About 30 percent of families with earnings in the bottom half of all incomes own equities, whether in the form of 401(k) investments, brokerage accounts, mutual funds, or individual stocks. For these lower-paid workers, the 2.5 percent average increase in hourly wages in 2017 is usually more meaningful. But inflation increased 2.1 percent last year, leaving them with just 0.4 percent more spending money, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics wage and inflation data. This is half of 2016’s inflation-adjusted wage gain.

In the next highest income group – from the middle-income level up to the 90^th percentile – about 70 percent of families own equities in various forms. In the top 10 percent, the vast majority do (94 percent).

The chasm between the well-heeled and ordinary workers has been widening. Stock ownership is one prism through which to view that inequality. …

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March 20, 2012

When an investor selects a mutual fund that’s hot, it usually backfires.

Morningstar Inc. generated the evidence for Squared Away: it essentially analyzed returns for two types of investors in the nation’s 25 largest fund companies – from PIMCO, Fidelity Investments and Vanguard Group on down. Using fund flow and performance data, it compared returns to a theoretical investor who stayed put for an entire decade to the returns that investors in funds actually experienced, given that they move into and out of funds.

Investors earned 3.8 percent per year, on average, over the decade ending Dec. 31, 2011, the Chicago fund tracker said. If they had stayed put, they would’ve earned 5.3 percent. The results were not equal, because some of us make brilliant moves but more of us make dumb moves, such as buying high and selling low.

The gap – 1.5 percentage points – “is bigger than [fund] expense ratios,” said Don Phillips, Morningstar president of fund research. Investors “really hurt themselves that much.”

To be fair to 401(k) investors, their inertia is great. Those who select funds from employer-run plans typically buy and hold. But more money – about $1 trillion more – sits in Individual Retirement Accounts, where investors are more likely to trade on their own or to have brokers or advisers recommending new funds, whether motivated by their own commissions or their clients’ goals.

To try to improve returns, Phillips listed three types of funds investors should avoid: …Learn More

Money Culture

February 21, 2012

You have to admire a financial writer and editor with the guts to put this on his LinkedIn profile: “While many Wall Street people go to Harvard or Yale University to learn about business, Ron went to art school.”

The cartoons shown here are in a humorous financial book by Ronald DeLegge 2d, who said he first earned his chops as an insurance salesman at a small Midwestern company that eventually became part of AIG. His cartoons appear in “Gents with no ¢ents: A closer look at Wall Street, its customers, financial regulators, and the media.” Dave Clegg was the illustrator.

Enjoy.Learn More