Articles on Wealth Management Topics

One of the investment universes that Five Seasons Financial Planning monitors in an ongoing search for value to exploit for the benefit of client portfolios is that of closed-end mutual funds. At this time of year, when tax-loss selling is prevalent, there are often compelling values to be found, and this year is no different. Since you may be somewhat less familiar with the concept of closed-end mutual funds than with other types of mutual funds, here's a quick primer:

Health Savings Accounts, or HSA's, were only introduced in 2004, and already there are over 20 million of them. Much of that growth, however, has taken place in the last few years, driven by the recent popularity of high-deductible health insurance plans. I've owned an HSA since 2011 and am a big fan of them, so let's discuss the benefits of these relatively new accounts.

Almost half of retirees take Social Security at age 62, the earliest possible age you can sign up for these benefits. And the vast majority of retirees request benefits before their full retirement age. While the decision of when to file for Social Security benefits must be based on individual circumstances, I would argue that many retirees would be better served to wait longer to access this lifetime, inflation-adjusted stream of income.

Clients who've endured conversations with me about their recommended asset allocation know how much I stress the importance of their investment time horizon. During a recent discussion about investment ideas, my dad suggested "What's your time horizon?" be my epitaph. Maybe so, but considering in advance when you will need the money you're investing can keep you from making the worst kinds of financial mistakes. And keeping your investment horizon in mind during periods of market turbulence should help keep you on course for attaining your financial goals.

To pick up where we left off in our last blog post on the role of annuities in a retirement portfolio, immediate annuities can serve a useful function. But like any other financial product, there are cost-effective, well-engineered annuities and expensive, poorly-designed ones. Here are some welcome and interesting annuity features that you may be unaware of if your only prior experience with annuities is through an insurance salesperson:

If there's one investment vehicle that causes more controversy than any other, it has to be the annuity. Opinions among financial professionals are usually divided along the lines of compensation model. Commission-based brokers and insurance salespeople tend to think more highly of them, and to recommend them more frequently, than Fee-Only financial planners.

In the prior posting in our series, Articles on Wealth Management Topics, we discussed the basics of the Roth 401(k) plans that many employers have introduced in recent years. But are these plans right for you, or should you stick to contributing to the traditional 401(k)? Let's talk about some of the circumstances that would make Roth 401(k) contributions more attractive.

Now that Roth 401(k) plans have become a permanent fixture, more companies are beginning to offer this option to employees. With that in mind, let's take a look at the major features of this relatively new type of retirement plan.

One of the most widespread misconceptions or overlooked opportunities in retirement planning concerns contributions to IRAs.

Pension or "defined benefit" plans are in a state of decline in more ways than one. Thousands of pension plans have been terminated in recent years. The vast majority of them were fully funded, but were frozen by healthy companies, like IBM, Verizon and Hewlett Packard, looking to save money.