Your questions answered, our plans revealed

This podcast (also a video) answers questions from our listeners, viewers and newsletter subscribers, and updates you on our upcoming projects. Paul Merriman, founder and president of The Merriman Financial Education, is joined by Chris Pedersen, Director of Research and author of 2 Funds for Life — A quest for simple & effective investing strategies, and Daryl Bahls, Director of Analytics.

Topics:

1. What’s on the trio’s to-do list over the next few months?  Chris will update the Best-In-Class recommendations. Daryl will update all of the important tables, including: Ultimate Buy and Hold, Fine Tuning Your Asset Allocation, Accumulation and Distributions and the No Nonsense portfolio tables. [Currently found at: https://paulmerriman.com/best-advice/].  Also, Paul will create a new presentation with a discussion of the "White Coat Investor" article, “150 Portfolios Better Than Yours.”
2. Review of 2021 returns.
3. How Chris selects the best ETFs.
4. The two layers of unnecessary costs when hiring an advisor who recommends actively-managed funds.
5. How to decide between an inexpensive index fund in a less-productive asset class and a more-expensive fund in a more-productive asset class.  In this case, VSCIX (small cap index) and GSSIX (a small cap value fund).
6. How to invest a $200,000 inherited IRA when the proceeds won’t be used by the present owners in their lifetime.
7. An investor asks if it’s OK to invest in a group of asset-class funds that are not the same as the recommended portfolios on our website.  Spoiler alert: Investor puts together a reasonable portfolio.
8. How to invest a big hunk of money when the market looks like it is going to go down or should go down or might go down… who knows?
9. Does Chris’ evaluation include leveraged ETFs?  Are they worth considering?
10. What to do about large positions in a company that is your employer?