Recent Articles from Charles Farrell
How to live off your money in a low-return world
Retired investors are facing some difficult choices in the financial markets these days. If you are retired, you know you need to take distributions month after month regardless of what’s happening on Wall Street. So what’s a retired investor to do?
Why investors need the sizzle and the steak
The financial markets today are more challenging than they have been in some time. We have many red herring indicators that are confusing to all of us as investors.
Investors: How to know when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em
One of the more difficult decisions for a portfolio manager is knowing when to sell a stock. In general, if you own a well-run business with a solid history of profitability, the vast majority of the time holding a company through a contracting business cycle is the right call; but not always. And there's the rub. How do you know when it's time to "fold them"?
What you need to know about investing during tough cycles
If you have an opportunity to invest in high-quality, long-term businesses that are experiencing some hard times, these difficult cycles usually open up attractive valuation windows.
Worrying about the Fed is a waste of time
The main problem is that governments can deploy lots of resources and influence short-term market dynamics in a big way. They are sort of like a "bull in a china shop."
Other people's pensions can threaten your retirement
Although public pension funding sounds like an obscure issue, it directly affects how we are investing client portfolios today. Historically, we have invested a portion of clients' taxable portfolios in municipal bonds.
Portfolio rebalancing
As we are nearing the halfway point of 2015, we have been in the process of rebalancing many of our client portfolios.
Retirement income inflation
Many of us think of inflation simply as an increase in prices of consumer goods, such as gas and food. But there’s another type of inflation that impacts the price of assets, and it’s hitting retirees particularly hard. Retired investors are getting hammered by this type of inflation because it’s costing them three times as […]
And now—the good news
You might be wondering what good news is out there in the markets. Well, there’s actually a lot of good business news out there, but investors and the media are choosing to ignore it. Here are some statistics that might make you feel better about the future: Record Earnings. This year, the companies that make […]
Your capital to income ratio
In personal finance, all decisions you make should help you move from a being a laborer to being a capitalist. As a laborer you are paid a wage for your services. As a capitalist, you are paid not for the value of your labor, but for the use of your money. The concept of moving […]