Investigate Your Target-Date Funds

If you invest in your employer sponsored retirement plan you have probably heard of Target-Date funds.  These funds are characterized as investments that change the allocation of stocks, bonds, and cash according to your specified retirement date.  In theory, these funds should progressively reduce risk exposure as the target date approaches.  However, there are no [...]

A Gold Standard?

The gold standard discussion in the mainstream media over the last year or so has been driven by the extreme measures taken by the Federal Reserve to shore up our banking system during the credit crisis.  Brad Delong, an economics professor at U.C. Berkeley has an interesting summary of why the gold standard monetary policy [...]

Shouldn’t We Be Investing in Gold?

Investing in gold is on the tip of many investors’ tongues these days. The fact that gold has tripled in value over the last seven years and recently has been hovering at a price of $1,100 an ounce, has certainly helped.  This is coupled with the realization that gold has outperformed most of the major [...]

Will the 2010 Estate Tax Repeal Impact You?

When Congress left town on Christmas Eve, it failed to address a major issue – the repeal of the federal estate tax…

Life After the Lost Decade

After going through multiple investment bubbles, a severe credit crisis, and two painful recessions, the “Lost Decade” for stock investments has come to an end.   In fact, the latter half of 2009 left us with a rather robust recovery and the idea that we may be participating in a sustainable economic recovery.
At the beginning of [...]

Check out the new Financial Symmetry Website!

We’ve recently launched a newly designed website- www.FinancialSymmetry.com.   We felt that a new site was needed to showcase our services in an easy-to-navigate manner.
A few of the new features include client stories, frequently asked questions and additional details of our services.
We invite you to browse our new website and hope you find it easy to [...]

The “Your Money Bus” comes to Raleigh

In response to the many fears and uncertainties that arose during the recent economic crisis, The National Association of Personal Financial Advisors (NAPFA) Consumer Education Foundation sponsored multiple financial advice events around the country as part of the “Your Money Bus” tour.  On Tuesday January 19th, the “Your Money Bus” rolled in to downtown Raleigh, [...]

Did You Make Roth Contributions for 2009?

Have you made your 2009 Roth IRA contribution?
If you have not yet made the maximum contribution, you still have time!  Tax payers have until April 15th of 2010 to make their Roth contributions for the 2009 tax year.  If you are within the income limitations to make contributions, a Roth IRA is an excellent investment [...]

I Bought Quicken, Now How Do I Use It?

There’s no better time than the beginning of a new year to implement a new budget in order to gain control of your spending. In the final installment of our series on Quicken, we provide a few pointers to make using Quicken more meaningful so that you can better track where your money goes.

Understanding Morningstar Star Ratings

When selecting mutual funds to use in our client’s accounts we use various quantitative and qualitative factors to evaluate if we believe a fund can add value.  Morningstar is the most widely used source of mutual fund data and analysis, so we rely on their data for a significant portion of our research.  One thing [...]

FSI News & Views

This news site includes independent analysis and commentary by Financial Symmetry on the global economy.
We view all market developments through the same filter, "How will this affect our clients?"

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