Market commentary you deem relevant

[Beendare]

Retirement and Medicare;

Medicare can cost us especially since the Biden admin initiated a tax on folks making more than rock bottom Social Security payments. Its a sliding scale they use to charge us.

For example, my one retired buddy and his wife pay $504 each per month for Medicare. He has a good retirement with a decent amt of $$ coming in…but still….we paid into SS for decades…and then the gov jams us.

Its worth knowing your full retirement age. Mine is 66 1/2. If I wait until then to claim, they don’t subtract from my benefit amount if I take a part time job making over ( about) $25k. …but then there is still taxes- aaaaaaaaaarg.

 

[SDHNTR]

Don’t forget Medigap/supplement plan! Part A and B is not enough.

And think real hard about taking SS early. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should! Anything under 66/67 (depending on your dob) is early and a dramatically reduced benefit. Rarely makes sense.

 

[Paradox]

Retirement and Medicare;

Medicare can cost us especially since the Biden admin initiated a tax on folks making more than rock bottom Social Security payments. Its a sliding scale they use to charge us.

For example, my one retired buddy and his wife pay $504 each per month for Medicare. He has a good retirement with a decent amt of $$ coming in…but still….we paid into SS for decades…and then the gov jams us.

Its worth knowing your full retirement age. Mine is 66 1/2. If I wait until then to claim, they don’t subtract from my benefit amount if I take a part time job making over ( about) $25k. …but then there is still taxes- aaaaaaaaaarg.

Even better deal is to wait til 70 to take SS you get 8% bonus each year you wait over full retirement. Hard to beat that free money!

 

[bluemaroon]

Going back to OP’s original request for advice on helpful market commentary sources, here’s a few I’ve followed for past several years with success researching solid companies to invest in that have provided strong long term returns:

1. Wall Street Journal’s “Heard on the Street” columns taught me a lot over the years about how look at individual stocks and market segments (subscription required)

2. Barron’s Financial News is excellent (subscription access my through my Wall Street Journal account)

3. CNBC’s Fast Money provides excellent daily recap of market (I listen to free podcast version on drive home from work)

Another great source comes from daily newsletters emailed from major investment banks that cover public stocks from my industry (oil and gas / energy). The I-banks will generally let you on their distribution list for free if you reach out to their research departments with your work email and you are tied to the industry they cover. My assumption is that this policy is similar for I-banks covering other industries as well (tech, consumer, healthcare, etc.). I find these reports a lot more technical in nature but easy to digest if you have experience and knowledge in the industry covered.

 

[OMF]

@bluemaroon,

Good info. I think a lot of people initially struggle with where to find good, reliable info.

On another note, I was in a local used book store the other day. While poking around looking for some older hunting, fishing, camping, hiking type of books I found a copy of "The 5 Mistakes Every Investor Makes...." book that @Michael Rankin posted about earlier. For $6 I picked it up and we'll see how many ways I've screwed up.

 

[SDHNTR]

One of the best books in existence on the subject is “Investing for Dummies”. Seriously, it’s fantastic.