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ICW Journal

It’s Silly Season for Market Predictions

Warren Buffett once said, “The only value of stock forecasters is to make fortune tellers look good.” At this time of year – when media outlets are brimming with forecasts and market predictions for the 12 months ahead – it’s wise to heed Buffett’s advice. Just look at Wall Street’s dismal record in divining the

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Putting China in Perspective

If you follow the financial news, you know that China’s stock market is in the midst of a sharp slide. The benchmark Shanghai Stock Exchange Composite Index has fallen more than 23% in the nine weeks since June 12th of this year, closing down more than 30% some five weeks ago on July 8th. What’s

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Greece, and Why Headlines Are Your Enemy

The “Greek drama” is over – or at least at an intermission. But for investors, the dire headlines generated by the country’s financial crisis provided a stiff test of self-discipline. First, a recap: Earlier this week, Greece and its Eurozone creditors tentatively agreed on a last-minute bailout package that could stave off economic collapse in

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Minimizing Two Key Retirement Risks

Warren Buffett has attributed much of his well-known investment success to two rules. Rule #1: Never lose money. Rule #2: Never forget Rule #1. What the Oracle of Omaha is reminding us, in a humorous way, is to keep our eye on the return of our capital, even more so than the return on our

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To Succeed in Investing, You Must Manage Risk

To live life more fully, we all must accept, and even embrace risk. The most fulfilling parts of our lives are full of risk, but generally worth pursuing. Our adventures, and even our responsibilities are risky, but both can be very rewarding as long as we aren’t reckless. Even flying our family to a vacation

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Paycheck Replacement is the Key Issue in Retirement Investing

For most of us, our working years are built around earning paychecks to pay for the necessities and luxuries of our life. Those checks create confidence that we’ll be able to pay the mortgage, buy groceries, go on vacations, and generally live a comfortable life. And when it comes to retirement investing, dependable income becomes

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Goals-Based Wealth Management

Imagine paying a visit to your tailor and ordering a suit.  Your only instructions:  It has to be bigger than your co-worker’s suit. That’s a ludicrous scenario, of course.  Everyone understands that the right-sized suit for you is the right-sized suit for you. But this short-sighted approach ‒ fixating on one-upping someone else ‒ is

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In a Volatile Market, Keep Your Bearings

Last week’s market decline continued today, as the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index fell .6%, to 1,989.63. Today’s losses, in which all 10 sectors in the index lost ground, followed a 3.5% decline in the index last week. That was the index’s largest decline since May 2012. Sharp little shocks like this are the

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The Power of Compounding

If you lived through the 1970s, you probably know the visceral fear that accompanies the word “inflation.” During that “Great Inflation” period, the rate of price increases surged to double-digit levels—reaching 14% by 1980. Businesses were destroyed; household budgets were shredded. Only by raising interest rates to a painful 20% did the Federal Reserve manage

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Lessons From the Market Correction

The stock market’s recent shakeout may have rattled investors – but the only permanent damage was to those who lost their nerve and pulled their money out. Like all bouts of market volatility, this one underlined the importance of having a plan and sticking to it. On September 19, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed

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