Investors today are nervous about bonds because of the historically low yields. The fear is that as interest rates rise, the value of existing bonds will fall. In this video we'll walk through bond investing for beginners. I'll cover how bonds work, my approach to bonds, and some suggesting bond funds.

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Note: At 26:14 my reference to I bonds should have been TIPS.

With inflation and interest rates on the rise, many have asked me about bond alternatives. While I haven't changed my investments, including the bonds funds I own, I do understand the concern over bond funds that have lost money this year.

So in this vide we will first looked at 4 alternatives to a traditional total U.S. bond fund.

Then we'll look at four bond alternatives.

And finally, we'll look at four investments many list as a bond alternative that really aren't a good alternative at all. In this section I should have included covered call ETFs. These are investments that can have a very high yield (8% or more). The problem is they can lose a lot of value, which takes away from the yield. And their risk as measured by standard deviation are often 3x that of a total U.S. bond fund.

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Personal Capital (Investment Tracking, Retirement Planning): https://robberger.com/go/personal-cap...

Today we look at a portfolio constructed by an investment advisor. This is a person who has a fiduciary obligation to act in the best interest of their clients. The result? I high fee portfolio on top of the 1% advisor fee. As you'll see, this portfolio could easily cost an investor $500,000 or more in lost wealth.

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Several viewers have recently asked me whether it makes sense to claim social security at 62 if you plan to invest the money. At first, it seems like a solid strategy. While your monthly benefit will be lower, you get years of investment returns you'd otherwise forfeit.

It turns out, however, that the issue is a bit more complex. First, depending on your investment returns, claiming social security at 62 may or may not turn out in your favor.

The arguably more important issue, however, is taxes. Claiming social security at 62 could affect everything from how much your social security benefits are taxed to IRMAA premiums or ACA credits. It could also affect a Roth conversion strategy.

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Sallie Mae 2.20% No-Penalty CD: https://www.allcards.com/best-savings...
Personal Capital Tesla Promotion: https://robberger.com/go/personal-cap...

Today we have the pleasure of speaking with Harold Evensky, the father of the Bucket Strategy.

Here are some resources from the show:
--Mr. Evensky's newsletter: https://evensky.com/resources/
--His most recent newsletter: https://files.myprimitive.cloud/uploa...
--His book (free on Kindle): https://www.amazon.com/Hello-Harold-V...

And some of his published papers:
--Modern Fool’s Gold: Alpha in Recessions: http://www.empirical.net/wp-content/u...
--The Efficacy of Publicly Available Retirement Planning Tools: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.c...
--The Benefits of a Cash Reserve Strategy in Retirement Distribution Planning:

Defensive Investing--How to Prepare for a Market Crash (In Advance)

With stocks, bonds and real estate at all-time highs, it's just a matter of time before we see a market correction, or worse. It doesn't help that our government is borrowing trillions of dollars, funded by a Fed who is buying bonds.

The question for investors is whether we should make changes to our portfolio today in preparation for the coming crash. If we should make changes, what should they be and when should we make them? And then there's the question of when we reverse any changes we make.

In this video we look at a Morningstar study on the diversification benefits of various asset classes based on their performance in past market crashes.

Morningstar Study: https://www.morningstar.com/content/d...

#RobBerger #marketcrash #investing

The Fidelity Contrafund (FCNTX) is a popular growth stock fund. In this video we take a deep dive on the fund to see if it's worth adding to our investment portfolio. In the process we'll look at growth vs value stock investing, active vs passive funds, and how to evaluate a fund's performance.

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Fidelity launched its ZERO index funds in 2018 to much fanfare. As their names suggest, these funds carry no expense ratios, a first in the industry.

As great as a “free” mutual fund may sound, however, many wonder whether there is a catch. Recently a viewer named Samir asked the following questions:

"Could you please share your thoughts on Fidelity ZERO funds vs their fee based funds?Fidelity ZERO International Index Fund (FZILX)Fidelity ZERO Total Market Index Fund (FZROX)Fidelity ZERO Large Cap Index Fund (FNILX)Fidelity ZERO Extended Market Index Fund (FZIPX)

Is FNILX + FZIPX = FZROX ?

ZERO funds have no fees, but other than cost, do you see any reason why one should invest in fee based instead of zero funds?

If you could please create video and share your thoughts, that would be very helpful."

Let’s dive into the details to get a better understanding of the Fidelity ZERO funds.

A viewer asked whether he could retire at the age of 49 with a 100% portfolio of VTI (Vanguard's total U.S. Stock Index ETF) using the 4% Rule. I think there are at least 3 big concerns with this plan:
1. The 4% rule assumed a 30 year retirement;
2. It found that a 100% stock portfolio could fail a 30 year retirement in some markets
3. A 100% U.S. stock allocation makes a big bet on the U.S. over the next 4 or 5 decades.

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