Ally Invest’s Digital Conference Replay

Our Director of Education, Shelley Seagler, participated in Ally Invest’s Digital Conference last month. Watch the video below to learn more about Shelley, Snider Advisors, and how we trade options to generate portfolio income. Watch Ally Invest’s Senior Options Analyst, Brian Overby, interview Shelley during Ally’s Digital Conference. The interview originally aired live on Ally’s YouTube channel on June 24, …

Can I Trade Options on an Index?

Passive investing has exploded in recent years. Investing in broad-market indexes has surged in popularity and costs less than ever before. You can take this approach to the next level by incorporating option trading in addition to index investing.  The easiest way to trade options while index investing is with the use of Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs).   Investors looking for lower-cost, …

Part 2: How to Generate Income from Your Portfolio

The second video in our 3-part Income Investor Training Series is now available! Income from your investments is critical in retirement when you no longer receive the paycheck from your job. At this point in your life, finding an investment approach to create income that supports your lifestyle is imperative. In today’s lesson, we explain a primary component of the …

Money Manager’s New Year Checklist for 2016

by Anthony Obey Money managers of every family need a solid checklist to work from as you chart your course for the New Year. After all, there’s nothing like the New Year to get the blood pumping through your veins, inspiring visions of new possibilities and goals to be reached. Sure, it’s common to drop New Year’s resolutions like a …

Skyrocket Long-term Portfolio Performance With One Quick Fix

Perspective just may be the single greatest indicator of success or failure in any pursuit. When it comes to investing for retirement, many people define wealth in terms of having a net worth of “X million dollars”. Most people spend a lifetime working hard, in pursuit of the million dollar nest egg goal for retirement. However, while many still hold …

4% Is Not Enough

By: Jesse Anderson Conventional advice says that you can withdraw 4% of your portfolio each year in retirement. Financial advisors have traditionally relied on this simple rule of thumb; however, for most investors 4% just is not enough. We all know that times have changed. The 4% rule comes from a complex formula running the historical performance of different investments …

When You Are Not Comfortable Trading Options

It would be great if we were all able to manage our own portfolio.  Unfortunately, for various reasons, it just isn’t that simple.   You may not have the time, are uncomfortable trading on your own, or concerned over using more advanced investment techniques like options. The horror stories about using options are popular.  I call these people traders, not investors.  …

Do You Need a Financial Advisor?

By: Shelley Seagler Do most of your friends or colleagues use financial advisors? Recently, more and more of my friends have expressed concerns over working with a financial advisor. They wonder: Are financial advisors really trustworthy? Do I have enough money? It sounds expensive, how much will it cost? Where to begin?   If you were to interview a few …

Questions and Answers about Required Minimum Distributions (RMD)

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) requires that all people who have some form of retirement savings (except for Roth retirement accounts) take an annual Required Minimum Distribution (RMD) starting in the year that you reach age 70 ½. The RMD is just that: a Required Minimum Distribution, not the maximum distribution. The IRS believes that at that age and beyond …

Investing is Not the Same Thing as Saving

A mistake far too many people make is to invest money they should be saving and save money that they should be investing. In our continuation of the discussion of Snider Advisors’ Guiding Principles, we will examine the principle that investing is not the same thing as saving. While saving and investing are certainly interrelated, they are also independent processes …