August 2008 Newsletter
FLASH!
Guy Baker is named one of top
advisors in Industry by Worth Magazine
The Market in August
by Guy Baker
The markets went sideways most of the last month. It ignored some good earnings reports and seemed to go static until the Fed meeting the first week of August. The Dow [-0.39%; -14.61%] went lower while the S&P 500 [+0.20%; -14.17%] and the NASDAQ Composite [+0.02%; - 12.87%] were slightly up.
Two Boring Weeks…
Like Watching the Paint Dry
from Joe Cannava
U.S. Markets
If you happened to be on vacation the past two weeks and did yourself the ultimate favor of ignoring newspapers, radio, CNBC, network nightly newscasts (and perhaps your favorite bartender if you have one) you might have concluded that so far, July has been
. . . -READ MORE-Is the Financial section replacing the Sports page in your daily reading?
Many of us are now making the financial section our morning sports page. What has happened in the last 24 hours and what is it going to do to my financial well being?
Investors have been confronted with a barrage of grim news—falling home prices, rising costs for food and fuel, and worries over the fragile health of the banking system. These are the worst of times? Well maybe not. Does the grim reporting bear any resemblance to the past? Have the media in other downturns said similar things?-READ MORE-
Don’t succumb to the lottery mentality
Sudden access to large amounts of money can throw you off balance: just look at what has happened to some big lottery winners over the years.
William Post won $16.2 million in the Pennsylvania lottery in 1988 but lost it to greedy relatives, a former girlfriend, and over-spending. Today he lives on $450 a month and food stamps.
It is almost impossible to find
winning mutual fund managers
Investors have long been seeking winning investment managers to handle their money. Nowhere has the competition been more intense than among the thousands of mutual funds that compete for attention.
It has always been assumed that some mutual fund managers beat the market due to their investment skills; indeed, if you read mutual fund ads, most of them claim to be in this group.
Save more now, retire later, or else spend less in retirement
American workers who want to retire someday are going to have to start making difficult choices that involve more pain now and perhaps more years in the workforce, says a new study by Hewitt Associates, a large employee benefits consulting firm.
Higher medical expenses, increasing longevity, and reduced access to pension plans and medical benefits for retirees are making it harder to retire successfully, Hewitt said.
State taxes, double your money, & more
Retirees looking for a place to live with low taxes have to consider each state’s income, estate, excise, property, and sales taxes, says the MetLife Mature Market Institute.
Its survey of taxes and license fees turned up the cheapest state, Alaska, with a total tax burden of 6.6 percent of income. The next four cheapest are New Hampshire, Tennessee, Delaware, and Alabama.
The five costliest states in the survey were . . .
-READ MORE-