This 4% “Share-Selling Death Spiral” Is the Worst Thing You Can Do Now

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Beware of Wall Street “wisdom” now more than ever. Especially when it comes to the most commonly quoted maxim for retirement: it’s based on a rule that was never designed for times like these!

Enter the “Dividend Death Spiral”

I’m talking about the so-called “4% rule,” which says you should sell 4% of your nest egg every year in retirement.

Sounds simple, right?

Trouble is, it slashes your income stream and caps your upside in one go! It’s especially dangerous advice to follow in a downturn like the one we’re experiencing.

Let’s say, for example, you owned $200,000 worth of Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) shares, which pay $3.80… Read more

Read More

Beware of Wall Street “wisdom” now more than ever. Especially when it comes to the most commonly quoted maxim for retirement: it’s based on a rule that was never designed for times like these!

Enter the “Dividend Death Spiral”

I’m talking about the so-called “4% rule,” which says you should sell 4% of your nest egg every year in retirement.

Sounds simple, right?

Trouble is, it slashes your income stream and caps your upside in one go! It’s especially dangerous advice to follow in a downturn like the one we’re experiencing.

Let’s say, for example, you owned $200,000 worth of Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) shares, which pay $3.80… Read more

Read More

You’ve probably heard the “wisdom” on mutual funds a million times.

It goes like this: mutual funds collect high fees and most still fail to beat the market, so why bother when you can buy a low-cost index fund, like the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY) or the Vanguard 500 ETF (VOO), and tag along with the market’s performance?

To be fair, it hasn’t been a bad strategy. Look at the total return those funds have posted over the last five years:

Indexing Has Paid Off—But We Can Do Better

Nearly doubling your money in half a decade is nice—but does that really mean mutual funds are ready for the dustbin of history?
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