I view the bonds we retirees hold as a form of insurance – downside protection. We need to sell from our portfolio each year for our spending. We don’t want to sell stocks when they’ve taken a deep dive. Selling stocks then for our spending

I’ve been encouraged about returns to date for this year and the outlook for our economy, but 2022 was a really bad year. Stocks and bonds combined for the roughly the fifth worst portfolio return in history. We rebounded in 2023 and are doing well

We’re within 3% of the inflation-adjusted peak for stocks in November 2021. This is a sharp change from my post at the two-year mark, when I concluded we had to see a real increase of 25% to get back to that peak. Wow. I’m

Two months ago, it looked like we were clearly headed to 2% inflation. November inflation, using the measure favored by the Federal Reserve was the lowest in four years. The inflation rate for January was issued yesterday and confirmed a reading earlier in the month.