McLean Asset Management

Though reverse mortgages have long held a bad reputation, research and public policy in recent years are shedding new light on their potential uses in retirement. The vast majority of reverse mortgages in the United States are Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM – commonly pronounced “heck-um”) reverse mortgages, which are regulated and insured through the…

In basic asset allocation for wealth accumulation, matching assets to liabilities is not a priority. The retirement liability (the desire to meet a spending goal in retirement) is not part of the analysis. Investment decisions made in an assets-only wealth management framework (where the goal is to maximize wealth subject to an acceptable volatility) often…

Any discussion of TIPS requires an additional mention of Series I Savings Bonds. I Bonds can be purchased in taxable accounts from Treasury Direct without paying any fees or commissions. They work like a CD as they are not tradable on secondary markets. I Bond yields are quoted in terms of a real interest rate,…

For a lot of people, retirement planning is a team sport. Unfortunately, it’s incredibly common for folks in the same household to have very different ideas of both what they want out of retirement, and what their retirement will actually look like. It’s never intentional – they just never actually talk about it. Not to…

Normally with these reviews, we look at something related to investing, or some direct financial planning issue. But we’re going to switch it up this week. More and more of our life, especially our financial life, is happening online now. This is massively more convenient for almost everyone, but there are real risks. There are…

Retirement accounts are powerful savings tools. Whether it’s an IRA, 401(k), or 403(b), they can help you minimize the impact of taxes and get the most out of your savings. But you have a choice to make. There are (basically) two types of retirement accounts: traditional and Roth. The difference between these two accounts comes…

To economists, especially finance folks, prices are near magical things. There’s a near infinite amount of information packed into that number. Prices make the economy work. And they work in the real world, too. Absent other information, prices are usually a decent proxy for value. It’s pretty safe to assume that a $100 steak will…

Traditional bonds are priced around the objective of getting a return that exceeds expected inflation. If inflation is unexpectedly high, then the real return on nominal bonds is less. TIPS, on the other hand, keep pace with higher inflation, because it triggers a higher nominal return above their underlying real interest rate. Essentially, TIPS provide…