Several mutual fund families, including Vanguard, Fidelity and Strong, also offer free online retirement spreadsheets. You may even find you ve already got enough of a piggy bank to retire on. Nobody says you have to walk off the job right now, of course. I constantly hear from new subscribers who own mutual funds. I m not one of those advisors who are forever trying to coax people to get rid of their mutual funds in favor of individual securities.
Mutual funds can provide an excellent foundation for a well-constructed portfolio.
At the same time, I like to believe that we occasionally uncover stocks with explosive potential before most mutual fund managers catch the scent. If commissions aren t a problem, I encourage you to sample the stocks I recommend in the newsletter, using new money as it becomes available. Estimating Inflation Forecasters differ widely on how fast they think the cost of living will rise over the long pull. The spread between these two yields represents the market s consensus estimate of inflation over the life of the bonds. For one thing, medical costs grow faster than the so-called headline inflation rate almost every year.