brokerage firms Archives - DIY Personal & Retirement Financial Planning

DIY Personal & Retirement Financial Planning

Do-It-Yourself financial and investment planning Excel spreadsheet software

The Financial Services Industry is Still the Largest S&P 500 Sector – Even after the Collapse of its Stock Values

For three decades, the market value of the financial services industry segment within the Standard and Poors 500 composite index rose steadily to reach 21% in the middle of 2007. This article updates an August 2007 article, “The Biggest Personal Finance Story of the Past 30 Years,” which was published just as the real estate […]

"I do most of my own financial modeling, and I like the way VeriPlan generates “what if” scenarios that I like to compare, such as possibly buying a rental property, selling my house and renting, moving social security retirement age payment timing, and pulling out IRA money after taxes. Plus, I like VeriPlan for its automated projection of detailed investment costs. Thanks for making a great product. It has been a pleasure hearing from you and I read the article you suggested. All the best!"K. W. in Naperville, IL

"Larry, Thanks for the response. I watched the videos you’ve made so far on YouTube. Very good. In fact one of them addressed a situation that applies to me. I first learned about the zero federal taxes on long term capital gains when under the 25% marginal income tax rate from working with Veriplan a number of years ago. I’m no longer working but not yet receiving RMD’s or social security so my ordinary income is relatively low. So I’ve been taking full advantage of zero federal capital gains taxes by selling off my high expense ratio mutual funds which have a lot of capital gains built in since I’ve held them a long time and then I reinvest them in index mutual funds which don’t generate as much capital gains distributions. So the education that you and Veriplan provide has saved me thousands in taxes, not to mention the expenses on high cost mutual funds. Thanks again."M. D. in El Paso, TX

"I finally had the opportunity to dig into your most recent upgrade. It is amazing how far the product has come since I first interacted with the 2010 edition and the 2016 update shows the large amount of work done to make a major improvement in the product. The property and debt improvement is substantial. The fact it allows for buying and selling analysis of properties prospectively opens the door for using it with a number of primarily real estate oriented clients and I’m looking forward to that. I am also quite pleased to see the inflation rate adjustment with debt repayments. Thank you."Email update from L. M., Senior Investment Advisor in Idaho