Lon Jefferies, CFP®, MBA, Author at FIGuide

Major Changes to Social Security Filing Strategies (Updated!)

Nov 04 2015

After the market crash of 2000, Congress passed the Senior Citizens Freedom to Work Act. This law was intended to enable people who had previously retired and claimed their Social Security benefit to stop receiving their monthly check while they returned to work and continued earning retirement credits. Doing so would enable the worker to earn more income from employment while increasing their future Social Security benefit.

An unintended consequence of this adjustment was that it enabled U.S. citizens to explore and take advantage of various strategies to maximize their Social Security benefits that were outside the intentions of the… Read More

The Market Has Been Flat For Six Months — Why This is Great News

May 13 2015

Investors have experienced a very uneventful 2015. In fact, at market close on 5/7/15 the Dow Jones Industrial Average was at essentially the same value as it was on 12/5/14, up a total of just 0.72% over the six-month period. This lack of fluctuation has been even more pronounced over the last two months. As of the market close on 5/7/15, the S&P 500 has closed between 2,040 and 2,120 for 66 days in a row. Further, between 4/9/15 and market close on 5/6/15, the DOW hasn’t experienced a 1-month high OR low and has traded within a 2%… Read More

Attention Investors: Don’t Get Soft

Apr 24 2015

Do you realize how easy investors have had it lately? There is almost always something happening in the world that can serve as justification for selling investment positions or not investing new dollars. Yet, there hasn’t been many spooky events impacting the markets during the last several months. Let’s examine the investment environment we’ve recently enjoyed.

There is almost

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3 Wacky Stock Market Predictions for 2015

Dec 31 2014

To be clear, this article doesn’t contain any stock market predictions. Rather, the point of the article is in its title. This time of year, you’ll see many articles with similar titles and segments in the financial media with comparable themes. As Josh Brown points out in his most recent book, Clash of the Financial Pundits, this concept

The Short-Term Implications of Diversification

Oct 24 2014

Asset allocation is one of the key factors contributing to long-term investment success. When designing a portfolio that represents their risk tolerance, investors should be aware that a portfolio that is 50% stocks is likely to obtain approximately half of the gain when the market advances but suffer only half the loss when the market declines.

This general

Author - Lon Jefferies, CFP®, MBA