DIY Personal & Retirement Financial Planning
Do-It-Yourself financial and investment planning Excel spreadsheet software
You cannot invest without savings. How much savings are enough? … too little? … too much? Currently, the U.S. is experiencing a savings crisis. The net personal savings rate is zero or slightly negative, despite a healthy and growing economy. This situation is a prescription for millions upon millions of future personal financial disasters. (See: […]
Complete portfolio diversification is always a better idea. On average, the securities markets will not pay you to hold any skewed subset of the overall market. Doing so is just a gamble that may or may not pay off. You should not expect to be paid any more for the added risk and anxiety. Personal […]
Build Investment Asset Buffers to Protect Yourself from Market Volatility You may be just as nervous as the next person is about investment risk. However, the coverage of your future expenses by your accumulated assets will determine whether you can actually manage, when risk really happens. Financial Planning Software for Consumers A previous article, “The […]
You must stay invested in the securities markets to earn market return risk premiums Securities markets pay risk premiums to risk takers You have to have your money invested and at risk to be paid a risk premium. Attempting to avoid risk or losses by jumping in and out to “time the markets” does not […]
For Individual Investors Risk-Free Investment Money Is Fantasy Money Securities with low investment risk and high investment returns are just fantasies. No “risk-free” investment money is consistently and reliably available to individuals. Luck dominates skill in the securities markets. Clever investment selection is vastly over-hyped, and only the promoters tend to benefit. On average over […]
VeriPlan helps you to understand your lifetime personal savings requirements and whether your current savings rate is sufficient How much you earn, spend, and save are by far the most dominant determinants of your long-term financial well-being. You need a means to evaluate your current sustainable lifecycle consumption rate. VeriPlan provides such a means. VeriPlan […]
Your personal earnings, expenditures, and savings are the most important determinants of your family’s long-term financial wealth Summary: How much you earn, spend, and save are by far the most dominant determinants of your long-term financial well-being. Self-control in your decision-making regarding consumption is far more important than clever investing. Expenditure control works, while attempts […]
VeriPlan is designed to help you pursue scientifically based financial planning strategies VeriPlan offers you unprecedented direct control to perform your own automated personal financial planning. VeriPlan’s functionality also implements the principles of scientific finance. VeriPlan’s internal documentation and its links to information on the web help you to understand scientifically based personal financial planning […]
Financial research drives industry product development, but not necessarily toward the best interests of individuals Personal financial decisions seem to have become very complicated. To add to the confusion, the financial services industry develops an unending array of supposedly innovative new products. However, a large part of the complexity that individuals face results from the […]
Using Google Scholar to Find Finance Articles If you want to do some research about financial planning and investing by yourself, try using Google Scholar. Be prepared for a lot of the material you find to be esoteric. Nevertheless, Google Scholar is littered with diamonds that can improve your understanding of personal finance and save […]
John C. Bogle’s Blog and his article about ETFs This article is a heads-up to people interested in investment blogs and personal finance blogs. John C. Bogle, the founder of The Vanguard Group, Inc., has a blog called The Bogle eBlog. (If you are wondering about “eBlog,” it is an anagram of Bogle.) Mr. Bogle […]
Screening index mutual funds on-line with IndexUniverse.com In this article, The Skilled Investor discusses how to screen index mutual funds on-line. This article focuses on using the free index mutual fund screener and database available at IndexUniverse.com. We also discuss how to apply our seven scientifically based mutual fund screening criteria. Discover Home Financial Planning […]
Screening mutual funds on-line with Morningstar.com Summary: In this article, The Skilled Investor discusses how to screen mutual funds on-line using our seven scientifically based mutual fund screening criteria. This article focuses on using the free mutual fund screener and database available at Morningstar.com. Financial Planning Software for Consumers In a previous article, The Skilled […]
On-line screening of mutual funds and ETFs: minimum requirements In this article, The Skilled Investor discusses minimum requirements for on-line mutual fund and ETF screening tools. This article summarizes our seven scientifically based fund selection criteria and reports on our survey of the capabilities of free on-line website tools to do screens using these criteria. […]
Scientific mutual fund and ETF screening criteria: a summary Scientifically based selection criteria are rational methods to screen mutual funds and ETFs. Recently, The Skilled Investor Blog published a series of articles on scientifically based selection criteria for mutual funds and exchange traded funds (ETFs). These screening rules help you to winnow down the thousands […]
2006 and 2007 personal income tax rates for the 50 states and D.C. The Skilled Investor has made available for downloading a spreadsheet that contains graduated personal income tax rates and other personal income tax rate information for the 50 states and the District of Columbia. If you want to know about specific U.S. state […]
Evaluate the historical investment performance of mutual funds and ETFs, BUT ONLY AFTER using other screening criteria Choosing only from among mutual funds and ETFs that have performed very well in the past can lead to significant selection mistakes and inferior personal portfolio returns Previous superior or average fund performance simply does not predict similar […]
Choose mutual funds and ETFs with a minimum economical portfolio size If you are going to invest in actively managed funds, then you should want them to have a sufficiently large asset base to fund the necessary research. If an active fund is too small, then fund management quality can suffer or fees could grow. […]
Avoid very large actively managed mutual funds Big actively managed mutual fund portfolio positions and higher percentage ownership of any company’s bonds or common stock are not good things for actively managed mutual funds. Nor, are these big positions and high percentages good for you. Large portfolio size constrains how efficiently an actively managed mutual […]
Choose sufficiently mature mutual funds and ETFs Investing in more mature equity and bond mutual funds and exhanged-traded funds (ETFs) allows you to evaluate the historical consistency of a fund’s record. On average, the future portfolio returns of more mature funds are probably no more predictable than for very young funds with a similar style […]