Ahead of Portfolio Makeover Week, Morningstar's Christine Benz offers tips to alleviate common concerns over retirement readiness, inflation, allocation, and more.
After strong flows into stock funds earlier this year, investor interest in equities is waning as bond funds remain in high demand, says Morningstar's Mike Rawson.
These plans offer investors many benefits in saving for retirement, but they also have their drawbacks.
The decision about when to file for Social Security benefits is a complicated one, and it gets even more complex when two spouses are involved.
Although value funds have led the pack during this year's equity bull run, a handful of growth-oriented portfolios have held their own.
As investors debate the challenges of interest-rate and credit risks, they should also understand the role bonds play in their portfolios, says Morningstar's Sarah Bush.
Morningstar's director of personal finance recommends locking down short-term income needs in cash-like investments, stress-testing your bond holdings, and staying poised to buy on the dips.
The benchmark index doesn't reflect the true allocations of U.S. bond investors, and the industry needs to look again at corporate-bond index funds or rework the current index, says Vanguard founder Jack Bogle.
Income-hungry investors sought out niche fixed-income funds like bank-loans and non-traditional bonds in the first quarter, while the so-called great rotation into stocks is not yet confirmed.
First-quarter flows into many bond-fund categories were tepid compared with their equity counterparts, with improving economic conditions creating a Treasury sell-off.