Commentary Presented by: Dana Dunkelberger

I’ve been asked to explain how the dollar amount of what someone receives in social security is impacted by their age at filing for SS. This week’s article does that. It tells us “One of the most important factors affecting your retirement security is how long you work. Additional years make it easier to increase annual Social Security benefits through delayed filing: Filing at the earliest age (62) gets you 75 percent of your annual full benefit; every 12 months of delay past your full retirement age (currently around 66, depending on your year of birth) gets you an additional 8 percent until you turn 70. Working longer also can mean saving more, living off those savings for fewer years and getting more years of employer-subsidized health insurance”. Let us know if you need help in applying these formulas to your personal situation to determine how much additional income you may need to help you live out a more stress-free retirement. There are products that can provide additional income that you may not know about. Call us, we’re always here for you.

Commentary Presented by: Dana Dunkelberger

J.P. Morgan’s chief global strategist David Kelley recently gave a speech concerning there still being a long way to go before the US has a full economic recovery and it is “therefore wise for investors to be cautious.” “He compared the current situation to when he used to drive to New York from Massachusetts. It’s only about a four-hour drive in theory, but it always takes longer, he noted. That is because you’ll be “speeding along the highway, but you always know by the time you get to Bridgeport, Connecticut,” you hit traffic, so you try to avoid the traffic by taking the side roads, he recalled, adding: “Eventually you do get there — it’s just much slower going.” He said that “When you take the back roads, there are lots of twists and turns and the bottom line is that that makes it very difficult to see what is ahead, and speeding on a back road … will get you into trouble.” It may be time to think of ways of generating income in your portfolio without materially adding to your overall volatility. Call us, we can tell you about a product that protects your principal when the market goes down, and also guarantees income for life. We’re always here to help.​