As expected, the Federal Reserve Board gave the final approval of Charles Schwab’s $26 billion acquisition of TD Ameritrade on October 6, 2020, forming a brokerage firm with over $6 trillion in client assets. What do I need to do right now? Nothing at all. For the time being, you will continue to access your …Read More

Rethinking Retirement Planning ahead for your best years Looking forward to retiring from work?  Or retiring to a new enriching time in life. In their new book, What Retirees Want: A Holistic View of Life’s Third Age, psychologist Ken Dychtwald, PhD. and co-author Robert Morison explore how to successfully navigate the third phase of life—the …Read More

Indexers vs Stock-Pickers Two competing styles of investment management are “indexing” and “stock-picking.”  Which is better? Indexing is boring:  a mutual fund’s goal is to deliver exactly the return of the index — a fixed basket of stocks that doesn’t change very often.  There is no attempt to beat the market.  The goal is to deliver the …Read More

In Praise of Introverts In a great TED talk, Susan Cain says that introverts make better organizational leaders and are more creative.  She says we should celebrate and exploit the gift of introversion, even as many aspects of our culture imply that being an extrovert is better. (If you don’t have time to watch the whole 19 …Read More

When Your Child Turns 18 When a child turns 18, parents may face legal hurdles because the child is now considered an independent adult with privacy rights by many aspects of law.  These hurdles fall into two categories:  health decisions and property. If an 18-year old person is injured but has not signed a health care proxy or HIPAA release form, …Read More