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 [...]

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 [...]

Bill Ramsay, CFP®, recently participated in his third Triangle Business Journal roundtable event.  The 2009 Financial Roundtable: Wealth Strategies was held at the Triangle Business Journal office on September 29th, 2009, with the full article appearing in the October 16th, 2009 issue.
Bill also participated in the Triangle Busniess Journal’s rountables on August 23, 2007 and [...]

Back in March, many investors were wrestling with the emotions of wanting to preserve whatever money they still had.

There are two primary types of client relationships in the world of financial advice. The sales model represented by brokers and insurance agents versus the fiduciary model represented by Registered Investment Advisors.

The inherent problems and conflicts of interest with the sales model is why we choose to operate exclusively as Registered Investment Advisors.

All data is not created equal.  The following chart would seem to indicate
that US stocks are more expensive and overvalued then they’ve ever been.
http://www.chartoftheday.com
The rest of the story is that the last 12 months of earnings are not
representative of what earnings will be going forward.  Our best estimate is
that at current price levels, the PE [...]

Hyman Minsky was an economist who developed a theory about financial markets that seems to nearly perfectly describe the path of this crisis.

When there is snow on the ground, you can’t see the bulbs that will bloom in the spring. But you’ve seen the flowers before and know that they will bloom again.