How to Pay for College

As the college acceptance letters arrive, students are thrilled. However, while parents and grandparents are proud, they may also feel a little anxious about footing the bill for what they know is an important credential in today’s labor force. Before you sign on a dotted line, or heaven-forbid, raid your retirement account or borrow against your house, it’s time for a financial reality check. Here are the basic sources available to fund higher education, according to the Common Application, a not-for-profit member organization of more than 700 colleges and universities in the United States and around the world.

Retirement Planning Week 2017

Happy Retirement Planning Week! In honor of the celebration, it’s time to take stock of where Americans stand. According to the 2017 Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) Retirement Confidence Survey, we still have some work to do:

Housing Market 2017: 6 Tips for Buyers and Sellers

The improving economy, a tighter labor market and rising consumer confidence are fueling the continued housing market recovery. In January, existing home sales jumped to their highest level since early 2007 and nationally, prices rose to a 31-month nominal high, with prices up 5.9 percent from a year ago. The National home price index is up nearly 38 percent from the post-bubble low set in December 2011. (Don’t get too excited-when factoring in the rate of inflation, prices are still at April 2004 levels.)

Rooting for a Stock Market Correction

There have been four stock market corrections (a decline of 10 percent or more from the recent high) during the current eight-year long bull market. According to research dating back to 1900, corrections have occurred about once a year on average, and lasted on average about 115 days. Over the past thirty years or so, the S&P 500 has seen 21 corrections. Talk is increasing that correction number five of the second longest bull market on record, is just around the corner. If you are a long-term investor, you should be rooting for a correction. After all, wouldn’t you rather buy stocks at a 10 percent discount to where they are today?

How Does Healthcare's Defeat Impact Trump Economic Agenda?

After suffering a stinging defeat on healthcare, what’s next for the Trump economic agenda? The first lesson for the new President is that despite holding a majority in both the House and the Senate, lawmaking is complicated and difficult. That said, because they failed to clear their first legislative hurdle, will Trump and Speaker Ryan be able to enact the next item on their to do list, tax reform, not to mention infrastructure spending?

BlogMark TalercioMarch 25, 2017ACA, debt, deficit, healthcare, Obamacare, Tax Policy Center, tax reform, Trumpcare

Economic Growing Pains 2017

"The simple message is the economy is doing well," Federal Reserve Board Chair Janet Yellen said in the press conference that followed the central bank’s third quarter-point rate hike in 15 months. She went on to say "We have confidence in the robustness of the economy and its resilience to shocks." You might be wondering what exactly “well” means. Let’s start with the long-term economic growth rate, which has averaged about three percent annually for the 50 years from 1966 through 2016.

Strong Feb Jobs Means Fed Rate Hike

Get ready for a Fed interest rate hike this week. The February jobs report showed that the US economy added a larger than expected 235,000 jobs, the unemployment rate edged down to 4.7 percent and annual wage growth bounced back from a revised 2.6 percent in January to 2.8 percent, ahead of the 2.7 percent average seen in the second half of last year. The increase in wages demonstrates that the labor market is tightening and that state-level minimum wage hikes are filtering through the economy.

Six Ways to Reduce Your Tax Bill

Although the IRS code is complicated and thorny, there are plenty of legitimate ways to reduce your tax bill. Before you sit down to attack your taxes, grab last year’s return as a reference and then review your W-2s, 1099s, charitable contribution receipts. Additionally, your credit card and bank statements may be useful to jog your memory for unreimbursed business or medical expenses. Then, consider these six concepts:

Bull Market Celebrates Eight on a High

As the bull market in US stocks gets set to celebrate its eighth birthday this week, it is stunning to consider how far we have come. On March 9, 2009, here was the closing level of the three major indexes:

Dow: 6547 – lowest level since April 15, 1997
S&P 500: 676 – lowest level since Sept 12, 1996
NASDAQ: 1268 – lowest level since Oct 9, 2002

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