Ancora Financial

Chicago’s WGN TV interview with the author of the best seller, Last Chance Millionaire, Douglas Andrew.

WGNTV.com | WGN9

http://www.truthandpolitics.org/top-rates.php

NEW YORK — They were trumpeted to become the first generation of American inheritors — coddled and swaddled and loaded with money handed down to them, the fabled baby boomers.  
But a funny thing happened on their way to the fortune. Members of this generation, now about 42 to 60, never had much of a chance to inherit and invest the big money that they were supposed to have collected from their parents’ generous gifts and estates.  

Get the entire article in PDF format. 

To be sure, financial planners are under more regulatory stress than ever before.  Many view working with mortgage planners as a big, potential liability. Many planners can’t seem to understand that working with us is actually a huge blessing for them and their clients.
 

(Editor’s Note: This directly addresses all those concerns about the NASD and their thoughts about repositioning home equity.)

Get the entire article by clicking this link.

This article originally published November 14, 2006 on SmartMoney.com by Nicole Bullock was brought to our attention by Ancora agent Gary Vossler.
The following is an excerpt:
1.    “We’re making a mint on your 401(k) – even if you’re not.”
The number of 401(k) investors has soared in the past decade, to nearly 50 million from 28 million, according to Cerulli Associates. That torrid growth has created impressive efficiencies for the folks who run your plan. But it doesn’t mean those savings show up in your account; in fact, they could be coming straight out of it. In a practice known as revenue sharing, providers get a cut of the expense ratio on the funds in your 401(k) to cover day-to-day “administrative costs.” Since the fee is charged as a percentage of assets that revenue increases as your 401(k) grows, even though those costs stay virtually the same.

Get the entire article in PDF format.

We solve problems by building an equation, plugging in numbers, and then analyzing the results.   Our decisions are based on the results of the equation, but the most critical aspect of the process is getting the equation right in the first place. 

Get the entire article in PDF format.

NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)—-Despite repeated warnings that they need to save more–and to start at an earlier age–than their parents, nearly half of young workers and one-third of GenXers haven’t even begun to plan or save for retirement, according to MetLife’s recently released Employee Benefits Trend Study. Young workers between the ages of 21 and 30 are the most unprepared, with nearly half (40%) lacking retirement goals and/or savings. GenXers between the ages of 31 and 40 are also significantly behind, with nearly one-quarter (23%) admitting that they haven’t started to save, and an additional 8% saying they have no retirement savings goals.

Get the entire news wire in PDF format. 

The Tradeoff between Mortgage Prepayments
and Tax-Deferred Retirement Savings

We show that a significant number of households can perform a tax arbitrage by cutting back on their additional mortgage payments and increasing their contributions to tax-deferred accounts (TDA). Using data from the Survey of Consumer Finances, we show that about 38% of U.S. households that are accelerating their mortgage payments instead of saving in tax-deferred accounts are making the wrong choice…

Get the entire paper in PDF format.

One of our own federal banks—Chicago’s Federal Reserve Bank—has determined that by accelerating mortgage payments instead of stashing money in tax-deferred accounts, more than one in three Americans are making the “wrong choice,” and are giving up potentially important arbitrage gains.…

Get the entire commentary in PDF format.