Wall Street has rebounded so many times, so quickly. Uncertainty is the hobgoblin of financial markets. Right now, investors are contending with it daily as the European Union contends with the United Kingdom’s apparent exit. Globally, many institutional investors have responded to this uncertainty by selling. Should American retirement savers follow their lead? They may just want to wait out the turbulence. The Brexit vote was a disruption for Wall Street, not a new normal. Yes, it could mean a “new normal” for the European Union – but the European Union is not Wall Street. Stateside, investors respond to domestic economic and geopolitical indicators as much as foreign ones, perhaps more. A
A worldwide selloff occurs after the United Kingdom votes to leave the European Union. A wave of anxiety hit Wall Street Friday morning. Thursday night, the United Kingdom elected to become the first nation state to leave the European Union. The “Brexit” can potentially be finalized as soon as the summer of 2018.1 Voters in England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland were posed a simple question: “Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?” Seventy-two percent of the U.K. electorate went to the polls to answer the question, and in the final tally, Leave beat Remain 51.9% to 48.1%.2,3 The vote shocked investors worldwide. The threat of a Br
If so, how can they plan to meet those challenges? A new study has raised eyebrows about the retirement prospects of women. It comes from the National Institute on Retirement Security, a non-profit, non-partisan research organization based in Washington, D.C. Studying 2012 U.S. Census data, NRIS found that women aged 65 and older had 26% less income than their male peers. Looking at Vanguard’s 2014 fact set on its retirement plans, NRIS learned that the median retirement account balance for women was 34% less than that of men.1 Alarming numbers? Certainly. Two other statistics in the NRIS report are even more troubling. One, a woman 65 or older is 80% more likely to be impoverished than a ma
Doing the right things at the right time may leave you wealthier later. What can you do to start building wealth before age 35? You know time is your friend and that the earlier you begin saving and investing for the future, the better your financial prospects may become. So what steps should you take? Reduce your debt. You probably have some student loan debt to pay off. According to the Institute for College Access and Success, which tracks college costs, the average education debt owed by a college graduate is now $28,950. Hopefully, yours is not that high and you are paying off whatever education debt remains via an automatic monthly deduction from your checking account. If you are strug