Read Doug’s articles originally printed in The Jerusalem Post.
Profile Perspectives
Proper financial planning can change your relationship with money.
The Most Important Thing to Do Before You Retire
One of the most important things you should do before you retire is pay off your mortgage. However, your ability to do so may be affected by how many years it has left.
Generally, if you want to pay off your mortgage faster, you either increase payments so that they finish over a shorter period,… Read more
What You Need to Know About Timing the Market
Market timing is essentially the opposite of dollar-cost averaging.
Pros who believe they can put their money into the market at “optimal” times monitor trends and other financial criteria. They believe that markets follow predictable patterns and that market timers can select stocks before they shoot up. One problem with this strategy is that even when a person has wisely chosen a sector or correctly analyzed a cyclical pattern,… Read more
The Dollar Cost Dilemma
Sometimes when you invest a dollar, you can gain more. Continuing our three-part series on investing strategies, this column focuses on dollar-cost averaging.
Dollar-cost averaging
Investors use dollar-cost averaging when they own a stock/fund and want to buy more. Followers of this strategy invest a fixed dollar amount at regular intervals to buy additional shares…. Read more
Investing Strategies 101: Buy and Hold
One of the main keys to successful investing is strategy. In the financial world, there are various approaches and strategies for handling your money, and it’s always a good idea to research them to find out whether they could be useful to you.
Over the next three weeks, I will explain the nature of different investment strategies and how they work…. Read more
The Real Meaning of Average Annual Return
Is “annual return” a good measure of how your investments are doing?
If your investment account is returning average returns, you might be satisfied with your investments. After all, doesn’t that mean “you’re not losing money?”
But while average is fine in some areas of your life, it may not be enough if your investments give you an average rate of return…. Read more
Bad for Business: How to Make Sense of FATCA and FBAR
My op-ed piece in The Jerusalem Post outlines the potential fallout from these two regulated regulations, including the potential for small and medium-sized foreign banks to divest completely from the U.S. market.
Since these laws force American expatriates to disclose and pay taxes on most of their foreign financial holdings,… Read more
Lessons From My Father, the Financial Planner
Guest writer, Yosef Goldstein, Bar Mitzva Boy
Does your Abba make you do too many chores? Try this: Not only do I have to do my homework, make my bed, and do Shabbat jobs, but I’ve got to keep track of my money.
You see, in order to get my monthly allowance (which includes my bus fare to school),… Read more
Who Stole Your Retirement?
The Wall Street Journal ran a piece recently called, “The Economy Stole My Retirement.” They explained that the dreams of the small business owners who planned on selling their companies to fund their retirements were crushed. The article quoted the statistic that the median selling price for small businesses had dropped 25% from 2008 to $150,000 now…. Read more
Entrepreneurs Have Different Retirement Planning Needs from Salaried Workers
As a financial planner, I often tell my individual clients to build their financial future by saving for emergencies as well as for retirement. However, entrepreneurs often ignore this piece of wisdom. A study in the United Kingdom by Scottish Widows Savings & Investments discovered that one in five entrepreneurs have no funds left after they invested in new initiatives and paid off their company’s debts. … Read more
Retirement is Expensive
Retirement is expensive.
Some experts estimate that you’ll need approximately 70% of your pre-retirement income to maintain your current standard of living after you’ve stopped working. And, if you’re like those retired folks who choose to upgrade their post-retirement lifestyle, it may be even more expensive. Even if you think you’ll live a modest retirement lifestyle,… Read more
