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Safe and Profitable

United States treasury securities are generally thought of as the safest investment available. The only problem with treasuries is that the yield is often low in comparison with the needs of those who need income or to accumulate money for retirement. As of today, the yield on treasuries with a one year maturity is 1.68%, on a five year maturity, it is 2.81%, and on a ten year note the yield is 3.65%. Safe, but not very exciting.

  • Posted by daverill
  • Published: Sep 29, 2008

Investment Progress Report

In case you haven’t noticed, the investment world has been pretty unexciting for some time. As of June 30, 2008 the S&P 500 index has returned an average of 2.9% peer year. This is in contrast with a historic average return of better than 10%. An average investor, placing his $100,000 retirement assets in an S&P Index fund, saw that fund grow to $134,000 in ten years.

  • Posted by daverill
  • Published: Sep 04, 2008

Protection and Retirement in a Single Package

In these difficult times. many of us are being forced to make confusing choices, such as. " If I provide life insurance protection for my family, how will I be able to fund retirement? "

  • Posted by daverill
  • Published: Aug 07, 2008

Double Opportunity

The current stock market is generally depressing. Averages of the major market indexes are down for the year, and the general investing mood is depressing. Most of the blame goes to the price of oil and the sub-prime mortgage fiasco. These are genuine problems, but in many cases good companies have been punished along with the bad, creating a very interesting opportunity for double gains, not seen for a number of years.

  • Posted by daverill
  • Published: Jul 02, 2008

Trust Trusts

In this investment/saving environment, there seem to be very few attractive alternatives available. interest rates are low, so certificates of deposit and money market funds don't look very enticing. Stocks have been in a steady decline, and high oil prices and credit worries and housing problems aren't going away.

  • Posted by daverill
  • Published: Jun 26, 2008

Neat Tax Opportunity

The Internal Revenue Service is finally starting to realize that there is great value in Health Savings Accounts. As more and more people adopt these accounts, the IRS realizes that this will ultimately reduce the pressure on the government to subsidize post retirement health benefits.

  • Posted by daverill
  • Published: Jun 11, 2008

An Old Product Revisited

A number of client situations arose in recent months, causing us to revisit an old and trusted friend. Single Premium Whole Life is a versatile and valuable financial product. With all of the recent hoopla surrounding exotic investments, we sometimes forget conservative stable opportunities. Single Premium Life has particular value in cases involving those age 55 and over.

  • Posted by daverill
  • Published: May 19, 2008

Hold Tight

These are worrisome times. War, real estate doldrums, sub-prime mortgages and more are causing a lot of sleepless nights and nervous days. Our view is that these problems are serious, but there are also a number of reasons to be optimistic. But, for now, let's think about what we should be doing - or not doing.

  • Posted by daverill
  • Published: Mar 18, 2008

Interest Rate Opportunities

In light of the sub-prime mortgage crisis, slowing economy and other factors, the Fed has been aggressively lowering interest rates. According to national interest rate surveys the average money market rate is 2.64% and the rate for a five year certificate of deposit is 3.39%. The result of the interest rate decreases has been to create an opportunity for profit for savers.

  • Posted by daverill
  • Published: Mar 13, 2008

Retirement Plan Robbery

When 40lk plans were first introduced, some advisors recognized that this was one of the greatest cost shifting strategies in history. Formerly, employers funded retirement plans for their employees. The employer paid all the plan costs and invested all the money. Then 401k plans came along and enabled employees to take on a big part of the funding responsibility for retirement plans. This saved employers billions of dollars.

  • Posted by daverill
  • Published: Mar 13, 2008

Income Opportunity

What goes around, comes around. How often have we heard that phrase. Remember, just a few years ago when Alan Greenspan was lowering interest rates, it seemed like, daily? Well now we are in the same kind of environment. The Federal reserve is trying to avoid a recession and stave off inflation at the same time. Guess how they are doing it? Right, they are lowering interest rates. Here we go again, good news for borrowers, bad news for those who have to live off of the interest generated by their holdings.

  • Posted by daverill
  • Published: Feb 26, 2008

Looking for Lost Income?

In case you haven't noticed it, interest rates have been dropping rapidly. This has brought joy of those who want to refinance their mortgages, and to those who owe money and are in a position to change interest rates on the debt they carry.

  • Posted by daverill
  • Published: Feb 01, 2008

It's No Sin to Profit

We are obviously in a period of concern, fear and confusion in terms of our investments. One thing is true, people want their vices and will continue to engage in them, no matter what economic conditions exist.

  • Posted by daverill
  • Published: Jan 20, 2008

Protect Your Income

One in five Americans will experience a long term disability during their working years. Disabilities that persist for more than 90 days, tend to last for years. Every 30 seconds, someone files for bankruptcy in the aftermath of a serious medical problem. Despite these scary statistics, over 85% of those employed have no loss of income or disability coverage.

  • Posted by daverill
  • Published: Jan 09, 2008

Slow, But Not Bad

What's 2008 going to look like for investors, savers and borrowers? First, no one knows for sure, but based on the accumulated inputs provided by knowledgeable sources in finance and investing, here is the general picture.

  • Posted by daverill
  • Published: Dec 21, 2007
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