Public pension hole now $11,000 per U.S. worker

Top state and local pension funds lost $250 billion on the markets during the month of June and are down more than $600 billion for the year, according to a new study. The 100 biggest public sector pe...

Have retirement savers been fooled by the bull market?

Today in Weird Retirement News: 75% of those currently saving through a workplace plan, such as a 401(k), are apparently expecting to make it through their entire golden years without even having to t...

The Upper Middle Class Is Getting Squeezed

By Dion Rabouin | Photographs by Dina Litovsky for The Wall Street Journal July 25, 2022 5:30 am ET Mark Yu had a profitable pandemic. Like many Americans, he added to his savings and pulled in big ga...

Bear Market Have You Down? Here Are 3 Tips for Managing Anxiety During Tumult.

While investors and retirement savers grapple with a host of stressors from a bear market to surging inflation, financial advisors and psychologists say there are steps to take to ease anxiety. Illust...

A psychologist’s 5 steps to stop panicking about your 401(k)

In the fall of 2008, when global stock markets were imploding, I happened to be in New York. I switched on the TV in my hotel room and saw financial commentator Suze Orman on Larry King Live. She took...

Your retirement portfolio is fundamentally flawed: GMO

All across America, retirees and near-retirees are reeling. They were assured by simplistic “McMoney” financial advisers that bonds were “safe,” that bond returns were steady and predictable, and that...

Watch out — this one mistake could cost you thousands when you rollover your 401(k) to an IRA

Here’s a pro tip that can hardly be said often enough. When you change jobs and you think about rolling over your old company’s 401(k) to an IRA…watch out for all the extra fees. “Thousands of dollars...

Here’s how much the average working boomer has saved for retirement

Three news items that say a lot about the retirement crisis facing Americans and what we can do about it—if we want to. The first is a survey of 1,000 working Americans conducted recently showing much...

Meet the ‘unluckiest’ stock market investor of modern times

If you’re thinking of pulling your 401(k) out of the stock market, or you’re too terrified to invest more, you need to meet my friend Betty Badluck. Poor old Betty has had the worst luck of any stock ...

Why retiring this year could be a ‘worst-case’ scenario

This is an urgent update for anyone who has recently retired, or who is hoping to retire shortly, and who was expecting to follow one of those simple, time-tested rules for spending down their money d...

The Housing Market Just Hit a Wall. What’s Next for Prices, Brokers, and Builder Stocks.

My summer portfolio strategy is to play the old disco hit “Baby Come Back” while slow dancing with my December brokerage statements. If it works, I have a business idea involving Hall, Oates, and a tw...

3 moves retirement savers can make now to profit from the stock market turmoil

Every crisis is an opportunity. The massive turmoil on financial markets so far this year is no exception. Here are three things that every middle-class American can do with their 401(k), IRA or other...

Market Slide Forces Rookie Traders to Grow Up Fast

Lucas Daignault likes to glance at his E*Trade account before school or after his shifts at the supermarket. More days than not lately, it shows a sea of red. Mr. Daignault, who just turned 18 years o...

Growth Stocks Down. Small-Caps Are Worse. Could This Be Time for Small-Cap Growth?

If your stocks are trailing the S&P 500, which is down 15% from its early January high, borrow a tactic from the pros: switch benchmarks. Perhaps you’re beating growth stocks. The S&P 500 Grow...

The Market Is Melting Down and People Are Feeling It. ‘My Stomach Is Churning All Day.’

The last time Todd Jones heard this kind of panic in his clients’ voices, it was 2008 and the global financial system was on the brink of collapse. Mr. Jones, the chief investment officer at investmen...

Worried about your investments? Here’s how the smart money made 100% when market gloom was this bad.

The best news for investors that I’ve heard in a long time is that the M.B.A. geniuses who manage the world’s pension funds now hate the stock market with a vengeance. According to the latest comprehe...

You just retired and your target-date fund has plunged. What do you do now?

If you recently retired or are near retirement and you had your money in a target-date fund designed for people retiring about now, bad luck. So far this year, the “target” is you. Morningstar tells m...

The Stock Market Has Tumbled. The Best Stocks to Buy Now.

Investors are on pace for their worst year in history, declared strategists at one U.S. bank this past week. Their reasoning? Stocks and bonds are off to terrible starts, while consumer prices have ro...

This idiot-proof portfolio has beaten traditional stocks and bonds over 50 years

Do you have the right portfolio for your retirement savings? When it comes to long-term investing, the biggest issue — by far — is overall asset allocation: How much to stocks, sectors, assets and so ...

Feeling seasick? These simple, low-cost retirement portfolios are holding up well

Not everyone is having a terrible year. While stocks and bonds have all plummeted since Jan. 1, a few simple, low-cost, all-weather portfolios are doing a much better job of preserving their owners’ r...

No, the markets are not panicking about inflation

If you’ve turned on a TV, listened to the radio, or surfed internet news sites recently you’ve almost certainly heard that there is a crisis, and a panic, about inflation. You’ve been told it’s the re...

If we’re long-term investors, what should we be buying?

Ten times. That’s how often I’ve seen these market slumps, tumbles and crashes during the 25 years I’ve been writing about this stuff. At least. This includes slumps in 2010 and 2011 that were as bad ...

This little-known Vanguard fund has been crushing it — yes, even in this market

What would Jack Bogle think? The legendary Vanguard founder, who died three years ago at 89, famously advised investors to avoid anything fancy in their retirement portfolios, 401(k) plans and IRAs. B...

Opinion: Why I don’t want bitcoin in my 401(k)

Hooray! At long last, the company managing my 401(k) plan will allow me to bet up to 20% of my retirement funds on a digital Ponzi scheme that generates no income and has no practical use. Fidelity In...

Buy JPMorgan Stock. Despite Losing Some of Its Swagger, Shares Are Cheap.

There is a little less swagger than usual at JPMorgan Chase these days, and that’s probably good news for investors. Shares of the bank, the industry leader in market value and profits, are down 17% t...

Netflix and Disney Stocks Hit a Rough Patch. Don’t Count on a Quick Bounceback.

Netflix hasn’t done much wrong, despite a 35% plunge on quarterly results this past week, and a 22% one back in January. The company has convinced 222 million customers worldwide to hand it an average...

Six Dividend Stocks to Help Beat Inflation

The hot new investment theme isn’t socially nuanced crypto space finance or metaverse charging networks for virtual vehicles. It’s dividends—cash payments to shareholders. This year, U.S. equity divid...

AT&T Shareholders Who Sell Warner Bros. Stock Face Tax Complexities

Text size AT&T shares have risen 10% since April 8. Stefani Reynolds / AFP via Getty Images Since the AT&T spinoff of its 71% stake in Warner Bros. Discovery to its shareholders on April 8, ma...

Have fun AND retire rich — a great tax-refund life hack

For the 100 million of you who will get a tax refund this year, the former head of retirement solutions at J.P. Morgan has a great and very simple idea. Don’t spend all your refund. And don’t save all...

This is how much you made if you bought into the oil crash 2 years ago

If you want to retire rich, the late, great Dan Bunting has some advice for you. “Always buy the market (i.e., stocks or even just the index) after a spectacular bankruptcy,” my old friend Bunting, a ...

How the AT&T Spinoff Has Complicated Trading in Its Stock

Text size Photograph by Mike Mozart Trading in AT&T stock on Monday may confuse some investors, because the base share price has been adjusted to reflect the closing on Friday of the merger of AT&...

Stock Surge Validates AT&T’s Move to Spin, not Split, Stake in Warner Bros.

Text size AT&T’s spinoff appears to be popular with its legions of retail investors. Chris DELMAS / AFP / Getty Images The 7% gain in AT&T shares Monday offers some validation for the co...