A 73-year-old single retiree has a $1.6 million portfolio invested 80% in bonds and 20% in stocks, spends $64,000 annually, and receives $34,000 per year from Social Security. At first glance, the…
Your bond ETF could be costing you thousands of dollars a year, and I’m not just talking about years like 2022 where rising rates and inflation pushed bond prices down almost as…
Most investors hold Vanguard Total Bond Market ETF (NASDAQ:BND) because they want something boring in the portfolio, a sleeve that zigs when stocks zag. BND has become the default fixed-income holding for…
The Fidelity Total Bond ETF (NYSEARCA:FBND) sells itself as a one-ticket solution for the bond sleeve of your portfolio. It is actively managed by Fidelity’s fixed-income team, holds a wide swath of…
A staggering behavioral pattern is quietly draining retirement wealth. According to research cited by the Money Guy Show, nearly 30% of IRA rollovers remain uninvested in cash seven years later. The issue…
The pitch sounds clean. Hand an insurance company $750,000 and receive $4,200 a month for life, regardless of what the market does. For a 65-year-old single woman staring down 25 or 30…
Carl Sullivan Vanguard’s most popular bond ETF is also the largest U.S.-listed bond ETF by assets under management (AUM). It is the Vanguard Total Bond Market ETF (NASDAQ:BND). For a 0.03% expense ratio, investors…
Most retirees own a passive bond index fund without thinking twice. The PIMCO Multisector Bond Active ETF (NYSEARCA:PYLD) is the alternative that has quietly pulled in $8.07 billion in net flows over…
Hindsight is 20/20, but in 1995, going long fixed-income duration really was the correct move. Duration is essentially a measure of a bond portfolio’s sensitivity to changes in interest rates. The longer…
A 67-year-old retiree comparing core bond funds usually meets two pitches: PIMCO’s actively managed lineup, or the Vanguard Total Bond Market ETF (NASDAQ:BND). BND sounds boring next to a star manager promising…
A 65-year-old couple retired last spring with $1.7 million in a 70/30 portfolio and planned to withdraw $68,000 annually under the classic 4% rule. Then came an 18-trading-day slide that ripped through…
A new contradiction sits at the center of how Americans say they invest versus how they actually invest. The Charles Schwab Modern Wealth Survey 2025 found that over 63% of Americans believe…
David Beren There is a version of retirement income planning that does not involve learning about covered calls, tracking options premiums, or deciding whether this year's market environment favors growth or value. It involves…
A newly retired 65-year-old with $1.3 million invested 70/30 in stocks and bonds watched $210,000 vanish in five trading days during a tariff-driven selloff. The equity portion of the portfolio, $910,000, dropped…
Most retirees building income portfolios gravitate toward the same handful of names: dividend ETFs, money market funds, maybe a broad bond fund. What very few of them consider is a short-term corporate…
