Even though Municipal Bonds are an age-old part of boring fixed-income investing, they are exotic-sounding enough that I think they earn a blog post all their own. What are they? Like with most bonds, Munis are debt instruments. They are issued by (you guessed it) Municipalities, including states, cities, and…
Over the last few weeks, PFA has been able to celebrate a couple of great strides in professional development. Pardon me while I boast unapologetically. Sam Chaplin, our portfolio administrator successfully passed the Level I exam of the Chartered Financial Analyst designation. Actually, ‘successfully passed’ is a bit of an…
Two truths seem to hold when it comes to insurance: People like being insured, and People don’t like paying insurance premiums. People often make decisions on managing risk based upon these two factors alone. The trouble with this is that often people end up with too much or too little…
I was at a family wedding this summer and overheard a conversation between two relatives who happen to be in the nursing field. One was starting her career after graduating from college, and expressed the interest to take a job in public service because she wanted to become eligible for…
This week’s PFA Ponderings was written by guest blogger Magdalena Johndrow, MSc, CFS®, a Financial Advisor with Johndrow Wealth Management. The original blog publication can be found HERE. Summer is finally here! This means campfires, beach days, and vacation travel. But this also means higher gas prices, costly summer camps,…
If you do a Google search for “Questions to ask a financial advisor”, you’re likely to find a lot of repetition. How do you get paid? Are you a fiduciary? What designations do you have? What is your investment philosophy? These questions seem to be ubiquitous across nearly all articles…
I’ve never been a big fan of ‘Rules of Thumb’. They inevitably cause angst for people who have no need to be anxious, or they provide a false sense of security to people who SHOULD be worried. I’ve tried to research the etymology of the phrase ‘Rule of Thumb’ and…
In the world of investing, nothing seems to create more puzzlement than the relationship between bond prices and interest rates. It doesn’t help that there are so many different types of bonds and plenty of confusing lingo. When I hear on the radio that the ‘yield on the 10 year…
Often, the most disappointed reactions we get from clients is not the result of market declines. Rather, it’s the surprise that happens when they get their tax bill. Frequently, capital gains taxes are to blame. It’s important to know what causes someone to have to pay capital gains tax. Any…
Conventional wisdom has it that Social Security benefits are for when you’ve retired. Earning money AND taking Social Security at the same time seems a bit rogue, and such schemes do have limitations imposed by the Social Security Administration. However, there ARE, in fact times when you can double-dip and…
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