Book description
You must be aware of the value, potential return and risk of your human capital: your job, career and what you do for a living. Human capital is the most valuable asset that you will own over your lifecycle. You need to balance financial decisions with the characteristics of your human capital. The key trends identified in Are You a Stock or a Bond? include the decline of Defined Benefit (DB) pension provision, the continued increase in human longevity and the risk of personal inflation, and they are as relevant today as they were five years ago. The financial crisis has taught us that all types of capital -- human, financial and even social -- are key to a secure financial future. If your career has "stock-like" growth and risk characteristics, Milevsky helps you balance your "portfolio" by tilting investments towards safer "bonds."
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Saving for Retirement will relieve confusion and barriers to action. It acquaints readers with people like them, and step-by-step addresses what's likely confusing them. Instead of starting with some lofty financial planning theory, it walks individuals through the process everyone goes through with IRAs and 401 (k)s -- leaving no basic questions unanswered. Instead of telling readers to open an IRA-as many books do-it tells them how to open one: where to go, what the forms mean, how to decide how to invest, the essential first steps. The book removes everything from the reader's path that typically trips people up and hits the sweet spot for everyone from aged 18 to 60. Using new figures (including troubling new projections of healthcare and long-term care costs), she helps readers calculate exactly how much money they'll need. Next, she presents optimal asset allocations for each stage of life -- and shows how these allocations would've protected typical investors through the past five tumultuous years. Packed with her readers' personal stories, this book teaches powerful professional financial planning principles -- but makes them simple enough for anyone to apply on their own.
Table of contents
- About This eBook
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Contents
-
Are You a Stock or a Bond?: Identify Your Own Human Capital for a Secure Financial Future, Updated and Revised
- Copyright Page
- Dedication Page
- Praise for the Previous Edition Are You a Stock or a Bond?
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Preface to the Second (Revised) Edition
- Introduction: Pensions Are Dying; Long Live Pensions
- 1. You, Inc.
- 2. Insurance Is a Hedge for Human Capital
-
3. Diversification over Space and Time
- Why Does Diversification Work?
- Decomposing Risk: Systematic Versus Non-Systematic Risk
- The Importance of International Investing
- Correlations: The Magic Behind Asset Allocation
- How Does Time Impact Financial Risk and Volatility?
- Should I Take More Risk When I’m Younger?
- Diversification and the Financial Crisis
- Summary
- Endnotes
- 4. Can Debt Be Good at All Ages?
- 5. Personal Inflation and the Retirement Cost of Living
- 6. Sequence of Investment Returns
- 7. Longevity Is a Blessing and a Risk
- 8. Spending Your Retirement in a Risky World
- 9. Annuities Are Personal Pensions
- 10. Product Allocation Is the New Asset Allocation
- 11. Conclusion: Plan for Managing Your Retirement Risk
- Appendix: Additional References and Notes
- Index
- FT Press
-
Saving for Retirement (Without Living Like a Pauper or Winning the Lottery) Updated and Revised
- Copyright Page
- Dedication Page
- Praise for Saving for Retirement (Without Living Like a Pauper or Winning the Lottery), First Edition
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Introduction
- 1. Start Investing Early or Start Now
-
2. Know What You’ll Need
- The Retirement Difference: Pensions
- Today’s Responsibilities Are Yours
- Confusion Reigns
- What Do You Need?
- How Financial Planners Evaluate Your Needs
- Saving Enough?
- Don’t Let Fear Sidetrack You
- Don’t Save Too Much
- Doing a Retirement Calculation Like a Pro
- Imagine Your Life at 65 and 75
- Health Costs Are a Black Hole
- When Will You Retire?
- Nursing Homes
- How Long Will You Live?
- Women Live Longer, Need More Money
- Dig Out These Records
- How Much Security Is Social Security?
- Olden Days with Old-Style Pensions
- 401(k), 403(b), 457, and Profit Sharing
- IRAs and Other Savings Accounts
- The Big Guess Numbers
- The Easy Calculation
- Two Easy Rules of Thumb
- How Do You Turn $25 a Week into $1 Million?
- Using Your Calculation: The Advanced Lesson
-
3. Savings on Steroids: Use a 401(k) and an IRA
- The Hard Way
- What’s the Difference?
- Get the Match
- The Power of Warding Off Taxes
- Mutual Funds Get Taxed
- An IRA Instead?
- How to Use Your 401(k) or 403(b)
- Changing Your Mind
- Getting Started
- More Tax Help Than You Imagined
- Take Baby Steps
- Can You Spare a Dime?
- Finding Cash
- Qualifying for the Match
- Procrastination—Not Money—Hurts
- Leaving Your Job
- Emergency Bailout
- 4. An IRA: Every American’s Treasure Trove
-
5. IRA Decisions: How to Start and Where to Go
- Married, with No Job
- Where Do I Go? What Do I Do?
- Can’t I Wait Until I File My Taxes?
- The Choice Between a Traditional IRA and a Roth IRA
- The Choice Between a 401(k) and a Roth IRA
- Rules You Must Live By
- Last-Minute Regrets: I Want My Money Back
- Special Help for Low-Income People
- Help for Affluent People
- What Comes First: College or Retirement Saving?
- If You Operate a Small Business
- The Next Step
- 6. Why the Stock Market Isn’t a Roulette Wheel
- 7. What’s a Mutual Fund?
- 8. Making Sense of Wacky Mutual Fund Names
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9. Know Your Mutual Fund Manager’s Job
- The Cost of Ignorance
- Focus on the Right Words
- Stocks Come in Three Sizes: Know Your Size
- Recognizing the Tortoise and the Hare: Growth Versus Value
- International Stock (Equity) Funds
- Balanced Funds
- REITs (Real Estate Investment Trusts)
- Gold
- Sector or Specialty Funds
- Stable Value Fund
- Company Stock
- Bond Funds
- 10. The Only Way That Works: Asset Allocation
-
11. Do This
- Asset Allocation Is Simply Matching
- Picking Within Categories
- You Don’t Need to Use Every 401(k) Fund
- What’s Your Age: 20, 30, 40, 50, or 60?
- Doing Your Gut Check
- A Reality Check for Fear: The Losses of the 2007–2009 Crash
- The Easy Rule of Thumb
- Starting an IRA
- Avoid Market Timing
- The Impact of Market Timing
- Dollar-Cost Averaging
- Rebalance
- What You Can Control
- 12. How to Pick Mutual Funds: Bargain Shop
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13. Index Funds: Get What You Pay For
- What’s an Index Fund?
- What’s the Stock Market, and What’s a Stock Market Index?
- Using Index Funds in a 401(k)
- Tweak Your Portfolio Once a Year: Rebalance
- Using Index Funds in an IRA
- Indexes Come in Many Varieties: An Advanced Lesson
- Exchange-Traded Funds
- Some Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF) Ideas
- Tinkering with ETFs: For Advance Investors
- Beginning Investors: Starting an IRA with Pocket Change
- Warning: Not All Index Funds Are Good
- Is Your Fund Good or Bad?
- Advanced Comparison Lesson
- How to Analyze a Fund
- 14. Simple Does It: No-Brainer Investing with Target-Date Funds
- 15. Do You Need a Financial Adviser?
- Index
- FT Press
Product information
- Title: Retirement: Saving Funds for Your Future (Collection)
- Author(s):
- Release date: August 2013
- Publisher(s): Pearson
- ISBN: 9780133742374
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