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https://www.bls.gov/cex/csxgloss.htm#cueither: (1) all members of a particular household who are related by blood, marriage, adoption, or other legal arrangements; (2) a person living alone or sharing a household with others or living as a roomer in a private home or lodging house or in permanent living quarters in a hotel or motel, but who is financially independent; or (3) two or more persons living together who use their income to make joint expenditure decisions. Financial independence is determined by the three major expense categories: Housing, food, and other living expenses. To be considered financially independent, at least two of the three major expense categories have to be provided entirely, or in part, by the respondent.
https://www.bls.gov/cex/csxgloss.htm#refperReference person - The first member mentioned by the respondent when asked to "Start with the name of the person or one of the persons who owns or rents the home." It is with respect to this person that the relationship of the other consumer unit members is determined.
https://reuters.com/world/us/every-time-its-messy-us-again-approaching-debt-ceiling-2021-07-21/The U.S. Congress will learn on Wednesday when the federal government will likely run out of money to pay its bills, setting the stage for the latest in a long series of fights over what is known as the debt ceiling.
A failure by Democrats and Republicans to work out differences over whether government spending cuts should accompany an increase in the statutory debt limit, currently set at $28.5 trillion, could lead to a shutdown of the federal government -- something that has happened three times in the past decade.
On July 31, the Treasury Department technically bumps up against its statutory debt limit. Much like a personal credit card maximum, the debt ceiling is the amount of money the federal government is allowed to borrow to meet its obligations. These range from paying military salaries and IRS tax refunds to Social Security benefits and even interest payments on the debt.
Remeber that in 2011, Republicans launched a battle over the debt limit and federal spending, which led to the first-ever Standard & Poor's downgrade of the U.S. credit rating -- a move that reverberated through global financial markets.
https://annuity.org/retirement/retirement-statistics/Three-quarters of Americans agree the country is facing a retirement crisis, making research around the topic more relevant than ever. We dug into the data on every angle of retirement and compiled the most important statistics below. Read on to learn about what today’s retirees face, from financial challenges to lifestyle decisions and more.

-A quickening recovery is reshaping the demand in ways that could create both short‑term and long‑term potential opportunities for investors, Sharps says. Areas that could potentially benefit include the travel and hospitality industries, airlines, restaurants, and medical services.
-The economic recovery largely has been priced into U.S. equities. But earnings per share (EPS) for companies in many other markets have yet to rebound as quickly or strongly as they have for the S&P 500 Index. This creates the potential for non‑U.S. equities to outperform as the recovery broadens, he argues. “The reflation theme plays well in cyclicals, and [non‑U.S.] markets tend to be more cyclical.”
-Floating rate bank loans, Vaselkiv adds, currently offer a particularly attractive combination of relatively high yields and very short duration (an average of 90 days). This could provide benefits all the way through the next Fed tightening cycle, he argues.
-International investors still tend to focus on a handful of well‑known stocks in China’s e‑commerce and technology industries, Thomson says. He thinks more attractive potential opportunities may be available in areas such as biotech, health care, and financial technology. (in China) “China is innovating in these areas, and overall spending on research and development has accelerated.”
-Valuations. Price/earnings multiples in some sectors and stocks imply demanding profit growth expectations, Sharps reiterates. Even relatively strong second‑half results might fail to meet those expectations, generating market volatility.
https://friess.com/about/In 2001, Friess Associates facilitated succession from its founder by partnering with Affiliated Managers Group (AMG), making Friess Associates a majority-owned subsidiary of a public company. In the years following the 2008 financial crisis, senior management determined that Friess Associates needed to restructure to better position the firm to meet the long-term needs of clients and employees. Friess Associates and AMG agreed to terms that returned Friess Associates to private ownership in 2013.
https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/fired-fund-manager-friess-battle-amg-over-brandywine-portfolios-2021-04-22/Friess Associates, which managed Brandywine Funds on Affiliated Managers Group's (AMG) platform since 2013, [in April] filed preliminary proxy materials with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Reuters reported the firm's plans before the filing, which protests the firm's firing and points out that investors had no say in the termination.
Friess Associates said that investors are being harmed because their money is no longer being managed the way it was when they first invested.
The Global Impact Fund [formerly Brandywine Fund] follows an ESG mandate and the Global Real Return Fund [formerly Brandywine Blue] follows a real return strategy including short positions in global index futures.
This was outdated in 2008, let alone today. Bengen had raised the figure to 4.5% in 2005 by incorporating small cap stocks, and today his figure is even higher:One of the primary questions clients want answered is: What is the safe maximum withdrawal rate? Once again, Bengen has done some of the seminal work on this topic and has currently settled on a withdrawal figure of 4.15 percent for a portfolio with 63 percent in stocks.
Kitces, Financial Advisor Success Podcast!, Oct 13, 2020Bill [Bengen]: [I]n 2005, while I was working on my book, I introduced small cap stocks, U.S. small cap stocks, which really juiced everything. The return – they didn't have a perfect correlation with large cap, so that juiced it from 4.15% to almost 4.5%. ... And that's when I came up with that number.
...
Michael [Kitces]: And so, what do you think about as the number in the environment today?
Bill: I think somewhere in 4.75%, 5% is probably going to be okay. We won't know for 30 years, so I can safely say that in an interview.
In a nutshell, this is why I (and some other posters here) focus on total return, not yield.Clients think that because they are retired, the way to get income is through dividends and interest. Such thinking arises from what my partner Deena calls the “paycheck syndrome,” and it is nonsense. ...
... if clients depend on income largely from their bond portfolios, then when interest rates go up, they feel rich. But what is actually happening to the value of their portfolio? It is going down. When interest rates go down, they feel poor, but the portfolio value is going up. The strategy runs counter to financial reality. ...
People need real income. They need real cash flow, not nominal cash flow, and they do not get that real cash flow from an income portfolio.
He goes on for several paragraphs with examples and ways to address his concerns.[T]here is nothing new about it. ... I think it has been misused and overused. ...
I see several problems ... First, the increased number of guesses that Monte Carlo allows does not mean more accuracy. Second, Monte Carlo devalues the goal-setting process. Third, Monte Carlo probabilities are all or nothing. If Monte Carlo says I have a 70 percent chance of success, what does the remaining 30 percent mean? Starvation? Finally, Monte Carlo offers no insight into the unexpected, such as a Katrina event or the subprime crisis.
https://www.advisorperspectives.com/articles/2020/04/20/bucket-strategies-challenging-previous-researchThe first bucket strategy was developed by financial planning pioneer Harold Evensky in 1985. This was a two-bucket approach with a cash bucket holding five years of retirement spending, and a longer-term investment bucket consisting mostly of stocks. When the stock market performed poorly, withdrawals were taken from the cash account to avoid selling stocks in a down market, and when the stock market did well withdrawals were taken from the investment bucket, and investments from this bucket were also sold to replenish cash.
E&K Cash Flow Strategy. Sometime in the early 1980s, at Evensky and Katz we developed the E&K cash flow strategy that we continue to use today. It allows us to break the paycheck syndrome -The traditional withdrawal strategy for retirement is the income portfolio. It is a deeply flawed strategy, and any financial adviser who recommends income portfolios should cease and desist. Clients think that because they are retired, the way to get income is through dividends and interest. Such thinking arises from what my partner Deena calls the “paycheck syndrome,” by providing clients with a regular cash flow that they can depend on. Typically, it also includes an inflation adjustment because pay typically goes up with inflation.
To implement the cash flow strategy, we bifurcate the portfolio into two components—the cash flow reserve and the investment portfolio. The cash flow reserve portfolio is made up of two parts: two years’ worth of cash flow and any amounts needed for lump-sum expenses—a wedding, a new car, for instance—over the next five years. We base this amount on our five-year planning model. We do not believe in investing in stocks or bonds unless we have a five-year window in which to decide when to sell. We thereby mitigate the timing risk because we have control over the timing.
Which seems to bring us back to the thread AMG to Acquire Parnassus Funds:-Easterly, an asset management holding company that owns stakes in third-party investment management businesses and assists them with strategic growth, announced today it has acquired an equity interest in James Alpha Advisors, LLC, a boutique asset management firm specializing in Global REITs and liquid alternative portfolio solutions for institutional and individual investors. ...
As a result of the investment, Easterly has assumed operational control of the firm. ...
[Darrell Crate, Easterly’s Managing Principal] helped to build an asset management powerhouse as Chief Financial Officer of Affiliated Managers Group (NYSE: AMG), established Easterly in 2009...
BlackRock Securities Lending, Blackrock, January 2021Securities lending is a well-established practice whereby U.S. registered funds, such as mutual funds, make loans of securities to seek an incremental increase in returns for fund shareholders. This paper explains the basics of securities lending, outlines the benefits and risks for investors, and describes BlackRock’s leading approach to securities lending.
How well did your asset manager weather the market storm? Vanguard, Sept. 2020Vanguard’s securities-lending program—which lends equities under the same philosophy and approach today as it has since well before the global financial crisis—is unique in its exclusive focus on benefiting our investors and not our bottom line. We adhere strictly to a "value-lending" philosophy, managing our counterparty credit limits and collateral pool internally through [Vanguard Fixed Income Group] FIG.
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