“”A system of capitalism presumes sound money, not fiat money manipulated by a central bank. Capitalism cherishes voluntary contracts and interest rates that are determined by savings, not credit creation by a central bank.”” — Ron Paul
Qualified Charitable Distributions from IRAs on Hold in 2015
On December 16, 2015, there was an update to this post.
Before reading this, please reference the up-to-date information at:
Qualified Charitable Distribution from IRAs Permanently Extended
For those of you at least 70½ years old, you are probably very aware of minimum required distributions (MRDs) that you are required to withdraw every year from your retirement account(s). What you may not know is that The Pension Protection Act of 2006 enabled IRA owners, age 70½ or over, to directly transfer up to $100,000 per year tax-free to an eligible charity. This option could be used for distributions from IRAs, regardless of whether the owners itemize their deductions. Moreover, the transfer counts as your required minimum distribution (RMD) but does not boost your adjusted gross income. As of this writing, however, Congress has not passed legislation permitting tax-free transfers from IRAs to charity.
BrokerCheck: Brokers Required to Link to Free Background Check Site
Have you used BrokerCheck to perform a background check on your financial advisor? Don't worry. If not, you're not alone. In a casual survey, I found that only a small percentage of investors were familiar with BrokerCheck, a free tool from FINRA (the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority) that can help you research the professional backgrounds of brokers and brokerage firms, as well as investment advisor firms and advisors. Among those who knew about it, a smaller percentage had used it. In an effort to change that, the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) recently approved FINRA Rule 2210 requiring broker-dealers to include a “”readily apparent reference and hyperlink”” to BrokerCheck on their websites.
Bulls (and Bears) Gain Ground in Barron’s Fall Big Money Poll
This week's Barron's cover story features the results of their semi-annual Big Money Poll. In the spring, a record 50% of respondents categorized themselves as neutral about the market's prospects through year end. This looks like a good call as the market traded sideways to slightly down since the spring.
In the latest fall survey, it found that the pros are slightly more bullish than in the spring. 55% of respondents call themselves bullish through next June, up from 45% in the spring survey.
Even though the bulls have increased, this doesn't mean that it will translate to big gains in the stock market. Based on their mean market forecasts, the Big Money bulls see the Dow ending the year at 17,140 which is below yesterday's close. The bulls expect the Dow to reach 17,965 by the middle of next year, for a slight gain of 4.3% from here.
The 3 Biggest Fixed Index Annuity Myths
Transcript:
The Runnymede blog has become one of the most visited sites for annuity reviews with over 100k views. Since 2013, I’ve been writing independent annuity reviews to help buyers like you understand the complexities of annuities and truly understand what the products can deliver. Today I’m going to talk about the 3 biggest fixed index annuity myths.
3 Reasons Why the Fed Won’t Raise Rates and Is More Likely to Ease
Back in March 2015, we wrote that you shouldn't count on the Fed to raise rates in 2015 because of deflation and slowing growth. In September, we wrote that recession is just around the corner in the US.
Therefore (unlike the street), we were not surprised by Friday's weak job report where job growth was less than expected. Not only that, wages disappointed, revisions to August's report were bad, and the participation rate fell to a new 38-year-low.
It's time for investors to stop listening to the media noise and if you look at the the actual data, you can only reach one conclusion: the Fed will not raise rates in 2015 or 2016, but they will soon turn 180 degrees and start talking about the next round of QE (quantitative easing) and/or negative rates.
Let's take a look at 3 reasons why the data dependent Fed can't raise rates anytime soon.