As the American population ages, they face the prospect of long term care expenses.  Some families faced this problem with their own aged parents and are now trying to decide how to handle the possible need for themselves.  As people evaluate their options, they are facing several factors. Cost of Care According to the insurer Genworth, the […]

One of the basic axioms of investing is portfolio diversification. Simply put, an investor should not “put all eggs in one basket.” Prudent investing includes allocating your investment dollars among asset classes (stocks, bonds, cash, etc.) and different investment styles (large cap value, small cap growth, international, etc.). That allocation should be done in accordance […]

Welcome to the spring installment of our quarterly newsletter.  For us, spring is a time for new growth as we emerge from the winter, spring cleaning, and TAXES…  We hope that you can use our newsletter to “spring clean” some of your financial planning topics with the included articles. Each year around tax filing time […]

Declining ability to take care of one’s self is a rising concern, especially as life expectancy increases. The prospect of spending time in a care facility is not something anyone desires; however, it will be a fact of life for some. As such, prudence demands that long term care provisions be addressed in any financial […]

Individual Retirement Accounts (IRA) became popular with the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981. Some basic premises drove IRAs creation. (Other rules may apply): Some individuals could contribute money into an IRA account on a pre-tax basis, i.e. the money contributed into the IRA would not be taxable income at the time earned. Money in […]

A major benefit of trust planning in the past was the ability to shelter assets from estate taxes. There have been changes in the estate tax law (with the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012) that has eased the estate tax burden significantly. First, the amount exempted from estate tax was raised (currently $5.25 million […]

Last year (2013) was a time of significant corporate stock buy-backs. Corporate management used about $750 billion (some of which was borrowed at historically low interest rates) to repurchase shares of their company stock. The last time such levels of buy-backs were done was in 2007—remember what happened in 2008? Buy-backs reduce the number of […]

There is considerable discussion in the investment profession concerning the compensation of advisors for investment advice. What is the difference and does it matter? That’s the subject of this discussion. Fee Only Fee only compensation means the advisor is compensated by a flat fee or percentage of assets under management (annually); compensation may also be […]

Retirement planning involves covering estimated expenses in retirement from known resources. Those resources may include pensions, Social Security benefits, earnings from investments, part-time work, or any combination of the above. Estimating expenses in retirement can be a more “interesting” exercise. Many pre-retirees can make a reasonable estimate of basic living expenses (usually in today’s dollars […]

The “talking heads” on the financial news networks broadcast a seemingly never-ending stream of numbers and discuss the implications of those numbers on the investment market. While we at Paragon Financial Advisors do not presume to be economists, there are some numbers which definitely warrant following. Some of the major ones follow:Gross Domestic Product (GDP)The […]