You know how important it is to plan for your retirement, but where do you begin? One of your first steps should be to estimate how much income you’ll need to fund your retirement. That’s not as easy as it sounds, because retirement planning is not an exact science. Your specific needs depend on your goals and many other factors. However, by doing a little homework, you’ll be well on your way to a comfortable retirement.
Use your current income as a starting point
Many financial professionals suggest that you’ll need about 70 percent of your current annual income to fund your retirement. This can be a good starting point, but will that figure work for you? It depends on how close you are to retiring. If you’re young and retirement is still many years away, that figure probably won’t be a reliable estimate of your income needs. That’s because a lot may change between now and the time you retire. As you near retirement, the gap between your present needs and your future needs may narrow. But remember, use your current income only as a general guideline, even if retirement is right around the corner. To accurately estimate your retirement income needs, you’ll have to take some additional steps.
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Posted by Michael Chapman at 10:48 AM PDT
- There’s a party going on right now….
- Inflation is not the Fed’s problem
The words of Kool and the Gang’s infamous song, “Celebration,” keep ringing in my ears: “There’s a party going on right now, it’s a celebration.” The urge to merge is accelerating. An Investor’s Business Daily 5/09 headline reads: “Even Strong Firms Going Up for Sale as M&A Deals Soar.”
In the same issue of IBD, using data from Thompson Financial, reports, “Worldwide M&A activity exceeded $1.1 trillion during this year’s first quarter, a 27% increase from the prior year.”
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Posted by Michael Chapman at 5:43 PM PDT
- New highs in S&P 500 soon
- Earnings surprises move stocks higher
- Sell in May and go away…NOT
- Housing doing the Feds job
Conditions are still in place for a move to new all time highs in the S&P 500 index.
Last Friday’s Thompson First Call said that 55% of the S&P stocks have reported first quarter earnings and 70% had beaten estimates. This trend should continue for the next 30 days providing pleasant upside surprises.
Rupert Murdoch just announced a takeover bid (at a 64% premium to the stock’s current value) for Dow Jones Corporation. Not to sound like a broken record, but these events are happening weekly. The liquidity factor, which I have had on the bull side of our ledger since last November, continues to provide fuel for higher prices.
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Posted by Michael Chapman at 11:28 AM PDT
