A series dedicated to helping you achieve financial success through practical, easy-to-follow steps. At Vanguard, we believe you can achieve your goals when you have the tools to do the job—and that’s what Plain Talk is all about.
Target-date funds suffered slightly less than the overall stock market during the financial crisis. In this podcast, retirement expert John Ameriks of Vanguard Investment Counseling & Research discusses target-date funds and the merits of this "simple" approach to investing.
...MOREMost investors are probably familiar with the phrase "buy and hold." But there’s more to investing than buying and holding. An important part of investing is maintaining an asset allocation appropriate for your objectives, time horizon, and risk tolerance. In this episode, we speak with Fran Kinniry of Vanguard’s Investment Strategy Group to learn more about the ins and outs of buy-and-hold, or stay-the-course, investing. Mr. Kinniry explains how a buy-and-hold strategy is useful for both retired and young investors. He also stresses the importance of staying in the market despite the emotional inclination to sell out amid market turbulence.
...MOREJohn Ameriks, a senior investment analyst with Vanguard Investment Counseling and Research, talks about simple, sensible ways to draw down your savings and manage your finances after you retire.
...MOREThe cost of a college education seems to grow by the minute, and many parents think they’ll never be able to keep up. In this special episode from Vanguard’s Plain Talk on Investing podcast series, Alba Martinez of our Education Markets Group talks with principal Ellen Rinaldi about the advantages of an "automated" approach to saving. By investing in small increments on a regular schedule--in bad markets as well as good ones--you may be able to build up a sizeable college fund faster and more easily than you think.
...MOREWith the financial markets weathering extreme volatility over the last year, investing can seem more complex than ever. It doesn’t have to be, says Allan S. Roth, the founder of Wealth Logic, LLC, a financial planning and investment advisory firm. In his book, "How A Second Grader Beats Wall Street: Golden Rules Any Investor Can Learn," Mr. Roth and his son Kevin illustrate that adults tend to make investing much more complex than necessary—even destructive—and that everything we need to know about investing, we’ve learned by second grade.
...MOREIf you’re new to investing—whether you’re right out of school or getting started in your 30s or 40s—you may not know where to begin. In this podcast, Karen Blumenthal, author of The Wall Street Journal Guide to Starting Your Financial Life, discusses some smart investment strategies that can help you take control of your money and get on your way to lifelong financial independence.
...MORERecent legislation lets you skip your 2009 required minimum distribution (RMD). If you’re age 70½ or older, this could mean keeping some of your assets in your portfolio for longer to recover from the recent market downturn. Ellen Rinaldi, a Vanguard principal, gives a brief explanation of RMDs and discusses the advantages of skipping them.
...MOREA trust can be a valuable tool in helping to control the distribution of an investor's assets after he or she has passed away. In this episode, we spoke to Stephani Smith, a principal in Vanguard Asset Management Services™, to learn more about the ins and outs of trusts. Ms. Smith discusses the two basic trust types—revocable and irrevocable. She also describes how a trust can complement your other saving and investing goals and explains why it's very important to seek the guidance of an attorney in developing the trust document.
...MORELately, some of our shareholders have been asking whether Vanguard still believes in indexing--that is, investing in a collection of securities that tries to track the performance of an established benchmark, rather than attempting to "beat the market." We spoke to Vanguard’s chief investment officer, Gus Sauter, who says our faith in indexing hasn’t been shaken. In fact, we’re convinced it makes more sense than ever.
...MOREIf you don’t have an estate plan or haven’t updated an existing plan in several years, now may be a good time to give some thought to this important part of your financial life. In this podcast episode, Martin Riehl, who leads Vanguard Asset Management Services™, discusses how the current economic and market downturn could affect your estate planning. He also talks about the latest developments with the federal estate tax and explains why almost everyone can benefit from having an estate plan.
...MORECopyright info: The Vanguard Group
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