Help Center
“Make it nice, make it good, make it terrific and love life and love the planet. Love everything. We are so lucky.” -Klaus Obermeyer
Klaus Obermeyer is a hero of mine. He starts out life as an engineer, moves to Aspen because of skiing and creates a company that provides great value for his customers. Recently, he turned 100 years old and gave an inspiring interview to his hometown newspaper. I hope you enjoy it half as much as I do! Click Here to reach the article.
On another note, continuing last week’s theme, the past decade has been good for retirement savers. “Among households that had workplace retirement plans, the gains have been substantial. Average account balances jumped 22 percent from 2006 to 2018, according to Vanguard data.” (1)
The NY Times continues: “Last year, 52 percent of participants were using a target date fund, up from 13 percent in 2008, according to Vanguard — a figure the company expects to reach 70 percent in 2023.” (1)
Lately, it’s easy for NY Times and other media to wax effusively about any easy-to-love low-cost investment strategy, without thinking about the lost opportunities. Had these folks invested working with a professional financial advisor, I think they would likely have more money.
I believe their account values could have been so much better than a 13-year 22% increase. and nbsp;If their advisor helped them invest in equities–instead of just “target retirement date” or too-conservative portfolios–they might have done something like the S and amp;P 500. January 1st, 2006 the S and amp;P 500 Index was at 1,268. Today, the number is much closer to 3,000. and nbsp;(2)
It doesn’t take a financial wiz to tell you that an 1,700 gain on a 1,268 investment is better than the 22% average gain for Vanguard’s 401k investors. But I digress. The point of this article is that things are getting better. I wholeheartedly agree!
Next week, I’m taking the week off. See you in January. Happy New Year!
Sources:
(2) https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/%5EGSPC/history?p=%5EGSPC
