McLean Asset Management

Review: Hedge fund hate: More cash likely to flow out again this year

By McLean Asset Management / March 3, 2017 /

It’s always fun to take a couple of swings at hedge funds (though it’s starting to feel like punching down lately). It looks like the outflows from hedge funds will continue in the coming year. Both because of performance (according to a survey referenced in the article, only 3% of managers and investors thought that hedge…

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Review: Should Millennials buy Snapchat stock?

By McLean Asset Management / March 3, 2017 /

IPOs are sexy. Or at least the ones that make the headlines are. They’re the hot new (huge) company, and now people can get their own little piece of them. Plus they’re usually bouncing all over the place, so they make great news. But that volatility that reporters love is also a reason that most investors…

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Using Target-Date Retirement Income Funds To Guard Against Interest Rate Risk In Retirement

By McLean Asset Management / February 27, 2017 /

Dimensional Fund Advisors (DFA) takes a more direct approach to immunizing retirement liabilities through their target-date retirement income funds. These funds provide a useful case study for understanding the role bond funds play in meeting retirement expenses. One of the defining distinctions for retirement income planning as opposed to traditional wealth management is that the…

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Using Reverse Mortgages In A Responsible Retirement Income Plan

By McLean Asset Management / February 27, 2017 /

Though reverse mortgages have long held a bad reputation, research and public policy in recent years are shedding new light on their potential uses in retirement. The vast majority of reverse mortgages in the United States are Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM – commonly pronounced “heck-um”) reverse mortgages, which are regulated and insured through the…

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What Are Annuities?

By McLean Asset Management / February 23, 2017 /

Annuities are like financial power tools. In the right hands, they can help manage and stabilize your reliable income in retirement, but it’s also really easy to cut your fingers off if you don’t know what you’re doing. Think of annuities as contracts, in which you give someone money now in exchange for an income…

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The Hunt For Duration-Matched Bond Funds

By McLean Asset Management / February 21, 2017 /

In basic asset allocation for wealth accumulation, matching assets to liabilities is not a priority. The retirement liability (the desire to meet a spending goal in retirement) is not part of the analysis. Investment decisions made in an assets-only wealth management framework (where the goal is to maximize wealth subject to an acceptable volatility) often…

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What Every Retiree Should Know About I Bonds

By McLean Asset Management / February 21, 2017 /

Any discussion of TIPS requires an additional mention of Series I Savings Bonds. I Bonds can be purchased in taxable accounts from Treasury Direct without paying any fees or commissions. They work like a CD as they are not tradable on secondary markets. I Bond yields are quoted in terms of a real interest rate,…

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Review: Why you should think like a team when saving for your retirement

By McLean Asset Management / February 17, 2017 /

For a lot of people, retirement planning is a team sport. Unfortunately, it’s incredibly common for folks in the same household to have very different ideas of both what they want out of retirement, and what their retirement will actually look like. It’s never intentional – they just never actually talk about it. Not to…

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Review: How to Use a Password Manager

By McLean Asset Management / February 17, 2017 /

Normally with these reviews, we look at something related to investing, or some direct financial planning issue. But we’re going to switch it up this week. More and more of our life, especially our financial life, is happening online now. This is massively more convenient for almost everyone, but there are real risks. There are…

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