Click here to view the video on YouTube.

At some point, inflation poses a threat, and the Fed raises interest rates to cool the economy. Investors should know that will happen – but probably not anytime soon, Bob Landaas says in a Money Talk Video. Here is a transcript:

I think it’s really important for investors to understand where they are in economic history, to have a very clear sense of the business cycle and know what forces are in play that will move the equities and the fixed-income markets up or down.

And the basic business cycle lasts about five years. We come out of a recession; the Federal Reserve is interested in stimulating the economy, so they lower interest rates. We go through a period of time where we’re classified as a recovering economy, where we haven’t passed the prior high-water market yet for GDP. In the United States, we were a recovering economy from June of 2009 until a year ago November, when we transitioned into an expansionary economy.

Here’s the point: The minute we’re classified as an expansionary economy, we start worrying about when the Fed is going to raise interest rates to reduce economic activity because they’re worried about inflation. It’s very unusual in this current business cycle that we’re being told by the Fed now that they have no intention of raising rates until the latter part of 2015. That’s an eternity in our business.

It’s very unusual that we’re now in this sweet spot of the business cycle, not worrying about when the Fed is going to take the proverbial punch bowl away from the party. Two years is a very long time.

I think investors have to be very careful when they analyze the Fed’s remarks. They’re not saying they’re going to raise rates at the end of ‘15, they’re saying they’re not going to raise them until then – very different.

Forecasters have been wrong repeatedly over the last five years in suggesting that inflation was at our doorstep.

Concerns about quantitative easing, stimulus spending translated for a lot of folks into how inflation was going to take off. Gold investors forced the price of the bullion to record territories. And now we’ve seen gold plunge 25 percent in value in just a couple of years. So the bloom is off that rose.  And what that tells me is that interest rates aren’t about to go up anytime soon.

When you look at the personal consumption expenditure index, buried inside the GDP report – it comes out every 90 days – it tells us that inflation is barely measurable. The Fed has said that they want 2 percent as a target. They can’t even get it up to 2 percent.

So with all the noise that we hear about interest rates are about to  take off, bonds are about to get hurt, I suspect that at some point in time inflation will rear its ugly head, but it’s nowhere near the short-time horizon. I think it’s important for investors to know where they are in the business cycle and to look at the forces that push equity prices higher.

Bob Landaas is president of Landaas & Company.

Money Talk Video by Peter May

(initially posted May 2, 2013)

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As soon as broad stock market indexes surpassed previous peaks, investors wondered whether reversals were imminent. Based on various conditions in past cycles, Bob Landaas says, the bull market still has momentum. Here is a transcript of his Money Talk Video:

A lot of folks are asking us, now with the stock market at record levels, “Bob, shouldn’t we take some money off the table? Bob, I’m worried about the future, should we take some profit?”

I’m not so sure you want to do that right away.

There are a lot of differences between this current market cycle and past market peaks.

If you consider that in past market peaks, we had over 60% of the investing public bullish. Now it’s only 38 percent.

Past market peaks, the Fed had already started raising interest rates. And as we know, they’re not going to raise rates until the end of 2015 – at the earliest.

In past market peaks, the P/E ratio was over 18. We’re barely at 15 right now.  A lot of differences between past market peaks and the current cycle.

It’s interesting to note that it’s interest rates and earnings that drive stock prices. We know that interest rates aren’t going up anytime soon. Inflation is barely measurable.

When it comes to profit, we’re looking at a 9 percent increase in profits, according to Bloomberg, for the S&P 500 companies. And they’re already anticipating an 11 percent increase next year. If they come anywhere close to that, I think the market has some legs, and we’re perhaps in the fifth or sixth inning of this market cycle.

When you look at the retail investor, they just started getting into this market, as measured by flows into mutual funds. Up until December, for the last almost five years, net new money has been going into bond funds. And this past December, it switched over to stock funds. So the average retail investor is now just getting engaged. I think that’s interesting.

Laszlo Birinyi has written extensively about market cycles and talks about the classic fourth leg of a bull market is when the retail investor gets in.

We’ve been through this before.

In the early part of the 1990s, the retail investor wasn’t anywhere around. We were just recovering from the Resolution Trust, the collapse of much of the nation’s savings-and-loan industry.

So the average retail investor was worried. And the stock market went straight up for a number of years. The average retail investor didn’t get involved until 1996, and then of course the stock market went straight up for four more years after that.

Bob Landaas is president of Landaas & Company.

Money Talk Video by Peter May

(initially posted May 21, 2013)

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You might say that Lisa Lewitzke single-handedly has been raising awareness of childhood strokes.

Lisa is using the month of May to try accomplishing an everyday task each day using only her right hand. She’s blogging about her experiences to share what it would be like to be one-handed in a two-handed world.

Lisa’s own awareness began in 2009, when Wyatt, her then-infant son, was diagnosed with hemiplegia from a stroke he suffered before he was born.

“Wyatt lives his life basically one-handed because the stroke affected his right side of his brain, so his entire left side of his body was affected by that. So he does a lot of things one-handed,” explains Lisa, an associate at Landaas & Company. “To honor Wyatt and to kind of see how difficult his every day really is, I chose a task each day to do one-handed to see if I could or could not do it.”

Lisa’s blog (wyattsway.wordpress.com) recounts her struggles to wrap presents, zip a coat, peel an orange, play video games, do laundry, shop for groceries, make lunch, eat yogurt and more.

“I hope that people just take a moment to pause, that they look at their family and their kids and just take a moment to appreciate what they have in their lives. And I just want people to be aware that this happens to kids,” Lisa says. “And I think just the acceptance that everybody is different is really what I’m trying to promote.”

Landaas & Company video by Peter May

(initially posted May 20, 2013)

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Advisors on This Week’s Show

Bob Landaas

Brian Kilb

Steve Giles

Week in Review (May 13-17, 2013)

Significant economic indicators & reports

Monday

A key measure of consumer spending – retail sales – barely rose in April after sagging in March. The Commerce Department reported that 11 of 13 categories had higher sales in April, led by building supply stores and garden centers. Declines were mostly at gas stations, where prices fell. Year-to-year retail sales grew by 3.7%, below the 20-year average rate of 4.5%.

Business inventories stayed flat, but sales fell, according to a separate Commerce Department report. With supply outpacing demand, the inventories-to-sales ratio decreased, indicating that businesses would be less inclined to ramp up production or boost hiring until after sales trends improve.

Tuesday

No major releases

Wednesday

Inflation on the wholesale level grew at its slowest pace in three years in March, led by another drop in energy costs. The Bureau of Labor Statistics said the core Producer Price Index – excluding food and fuel – showed the smallest growth since November, reflecting slackened demand from an anemic economy. The year-to-year core rate was 1.7%, the same as in February and January, suggesting no immediate threat of inflation.

The Federal Reserve reported lower-than-expected industrial production and capacity utilization in April. Hampered by a dip in manufacturing and a slackening use of utilities, industrial production dropped for the first time in three months. Both indicators suggest economic growth remains subdued, giving little reason for Fed policy makers to cut back on monetary stimulus.

Thursday

The moving four-week average for initial unemployment claims rose for the first time in four weeks, up only slightly from the lowest level in five years. Labor Department data showed jobless claims down 10% from the year before and 49% below the recession peak set in April 2009. Current levels show continued employer reluctance to let go of their workers.

Offering further evidence that inflation is at bay, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said the Consumer Price Index fell for the second month in a row, largely because of falling gas prices. Year-to-year, the broadest-based measure of inflation rose 1.1%. That’s the slowest rate since November 2010 and safely below the Fed’s 2% target. The 30-year average is 2.9%.

The gradual housing recovery lost steam in April with housing starts falling more than forecast. The annual pace of new residential construction dropped 16.5% from March but was up 13.10% from April 2012, according to a joint report from Commerce and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. On a more encouraging note, building permits – a leading indicator of housing starts – rose to the fastest pace since June 2008.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Asset allocation accounts for the bulk of the long-term performance of investment portfolios. For the same reason you don’t put all your eggs in the same basket, successful investors rely on an array of investments. As Marc Amateis explains in a Money Talk Video, mutual funds can help make it easier to diversify a portfolio. Here is a transcript of the video:

When you set up an investment portfolio you really want to achieve a wide diversification: U.S. stocks, overseas stocks, large-caps, mid-caps, small-cap stocks, value stocks, growth stocks. The use of mutual funds allows you to get wide diversification across the broad spectrum of equities without having to pick and choose lots of individual stocks

When you invest in a mutual fund, you’re getting the expertise of that fund management team. And the best fund companies will do an outstanding job of researching the individual firms that they’re going to invest in, and we can take advantage of that.

There are about 63,000 listed securities globally, about 15,000 in the US alone.

It would be impossible for us to go out and research every individual company on our own to the extent that a mutual fund management team can do on a daily basis.

There have been a number of quality academic studies that have shown that basically 92 percent of the variance of the performance of investment portfolios is due to asset allocation. So that’s a real compelling argument for proper diversification and for really concentrating on asset allocation in a portfolio.

A very small part of the success that one has as an investor is due to individual security selection. Most of the success comes from a properly constructed portfolio and asset allocation.

For most investors, it’s very difficult to get proper diversification through individual stock and bond selection. It’s a lot easier to get proper diversification through the use of mutual funds and exchange-traded funds to get the kind of diversification that you need to control risk in a portfolio.

Marc Amateis is a vice president and investment advisor at Landaas & Company.

Money Talk Video by Peter May

(initially posted May 14, 2013)

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Advisors on This Week’s Show

Brian Kilb

Marc Amateis

Art Rothschild

Week in Review (May 6-10, 2013)

Significant economic indicators & reports

Monday

No major releases

Tuesday

The Federal Reserve reported that consumer credit grew by nearly $8 billion in March, which was less than analysts had expected. The debt expansion continues to be concentrated in non-revolving debt such as car financing and – the biggest factor – student loans. Credit card debt, which is a sign of consumer confidence, fell.

Wednesday

No major releases

Thursday

The Commerce Department said wholesale inventories rose 0.4% in March, reversing a decline in February. But warehouses filled more than demand warranted, with sales at the wholesale level falling 1.6%. The resulting ratio of wholesale inventories increased slightly, meaning companies are less likely to raise production or add workers if demand picks up.

The moving four-week average for initial unemployment claims dipped to its lowest point since January 2008, providing another sign that employers are reluctant to let workers go. Labor Department data showed jobless claims declining for three weeks in a row, maintaining a level below the historical average, which is a positive indicator for employment markets, though hiring remains constrained.

Friday

No major releases

Where the Markets Closed for the Week

• Nasdaq – 3,437, up 58 points or 1.7%
• Standard & Poor’s 500 – 1,633, up 19 points or 1.2%
• 10-year U.S. Treasury Note – 1.89%, up 0.14 point
• Dow Jones Industrial – 15,114, up 142 points or 0.9%

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That old maxim of buying low and selling high is a lot tougher when investors don’t know whether an investment’s value is high or low. As Brian Kilb explains in a Money Talk Video, one way to find an objective valuation is through the ratio of price to earnings. Here is a transcript of the video.

Most investors have great difficulties grasping what value to put on their individual stock or on the marketplace.

Like so many other markets, you wouldn’t go in and make a purchase without having some idea of what you think it’s worth. It’s that “what it’s worth” part of the equation that investors get so wrong, so often, because they don’t have an objective measure on which to compare what the market is telling them.

That’s where having objective data is essential to making intelligent investment decisions.

There are many, many different ways people in this industry have created over the years to determine value. Some are very simple. Some are very complicated.

A very simple way for investors to grasp an overall valuation of the markets is to look at the price-to-earnings ratio. How much in price – dollars – do you pay for each unit of earnings? The price-to-earnings ratio over time for the S&P 500, for instance, is around 15.

So if you were to take the projected earnings – either looking 12 months forward or looking 12 months backward – and then divide by what the current value of the market is, you’ll get that ratio. If that ratio is less than the historical norm, you might consider the market cheap. Conversely, if that ratio is greater than the historic norm, you might consider it to be a bit overpriced and shy away from purchases.

By using objective data such as these earnings or other measurements, it takes some of the ambiguity out of the investment decision. It gives you hard data on which to make these decisions.

Brian Kilb is executive vice president and chief operating officer of Landaas & Company.

Landaas & Company video by Peter May

(initially posted May 9, 2013)

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As an offshoot of our weekly podcasts – and to encourage your participation – we occasionally feature responses to listeners’ questions. Here are responses to a question from the May 3, 2013 podcast.

We have a family member who is expressing interest in investing in a fossil fuel-free mutual fund. Any comments would be appreciated.

- Irene, Sheboygan

Bob Landaas: There are a number of socially responsible mutual funds that have been set up to steer your funds towards the types of investments that you believe in.

All this started in earnest when people were investing, trying to avoid South Africa and trying to force divestment of companies that did business in South Africa, trying to steer the social debate. And it worked. A lot of companies abandoned South African holdings, and it forced the government to abandon the recklessness of apartheid.

We’ve seen social investing. Amy Domini, “Investing for Good” – she literally wrote the book on the subject. And, Irene, nowadays you can get social investment funds to screen for almost any issue you’d like.

And then, some of the better funds, the green funds, if you will, take it way beyond fossil fuels, where they’re trying to reward companies that are doing a more sustainable business model. And there are a number of them out there.

It’s difficult for us to recommend specific investments on the show here because then we’ve got prospectus disclaimers and disclosures and all sorts of things.

But the short answer is “Yes.” I know just of a few off the top of my head that are green funds that have actually done pretty well. And it’s not going to track the markets because there are going to be some years where, like the year before last, energy stocks did great and some of the alternative energy funds didn’t do as well. But in a normal year, in a diversified way, the social funds can do pretty good.

Paul Coldagelli:  Any investor needs to kind of think, “What am I investing for? Am I trying to make as much money as I can for the risk that I’m taking? Or is it a statement of my value system?”

And it is possible that if you want to incorporate your value system into your investment decisions, that you might underperform a little bit. You’re not going to be as diversified – by definition. On the other hand, your value system may be aligned with a future trend that outperforms the market.

But any time that you narrow the amount of diversification in your portfolio, you’re probably going to add some risk, and you might expose yourself to some potential underperformance, depending upon what it is you really want to invest in.

So the ability to invest more narrowly is available – not only through traditional mutual funds but also through exchange traded funds, which can be more narrowly defined.

The investor just needs to realize that there’s always a consequence to those decisions. And it may mean either higher volatility or underperformance.

And if the investor says, “That’s OK, because what’s really important to me is not just the return but it’s knowing that I’m investing in companies that share my value system.”

So each investor needs to determine if that’s an issue for himself or herself. But I think it’s great that people are asking the question.

Bob:  The reality is that for many of these funds, you can do well and do good at the same time.

In the old days, it was widely perceived that you were leaving some pretty serious money on the table by screening for social issues, and now because of some pretty sophisticated active management tools, some of these social funds have done pretty well.

(initially posted May 9, 2013)

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Advisors on This Week’s Show

Bob Landaas

Brian Kilb

Paul Coldagelli

Week in Review (April 29-May 3, 2012)

Significant economic indicators & reports

Monday

The driver of 70% of U.S. economic activity, consumer spending rose a little more than expected in March but followed a strong February and remained at a reasonable pace. The Bureau of Economic Analysis said personal income rose more than analysts had forecast. The same report showed a key inflation measure – the core Personal Consumption Expenditure index, rising at a 1.1% annual rate. That’s the lowest rate in two years and well below the level at which monetary policy makers at the Federal Reserve have said they would worry about inflation.

Contracts for home sales increased more than expected in March and advanced 7% from the year before, according to the National Association of Realtors. March marked the 23^rd consecutive month in year-to-year gains for pending home sales, but the trade group said a limited supply of houses for sale could slow activity.

Tuesday

Another sign of the U.S. housing recovery has been the gradual increase in sales prices for houses. The S&P/Case-Shiller index showed the 14^th month in a row of improving year-to-year price increases in February. The 9.3% gain for the 20-city composite was the widest gap since May 2006.

A leading indicator of consumer spending, consumer confidence, gained more than expected in April, mostly from greater expectations for employment and income later in the year. The Conference Board said consumers’ assessment of current conditions changed from March. Noting recent mood swings among consumers, an economist for the business research group said, “It is too soon to tell if confidence is on the mend.”

Wednesday

The Commerce Department said construction spending fell in March, disappointing analyst expectations. Both private and public spending on construction declined, although the government side dropped the most in 11 years. Total spending on housing construction continued growing, though, escalating nearly 18% from March 2012.

The ISM Manufacturing Index suggested the industry continued expanding for the fifth month in a row in April but just barely. Factories kept hiring, though at a slower pace. New orders and production components grew even faster than in March, offering potential for coming months.

The annual rate of motor vehicle sales dipped for the second month in a row in April. But figures from Autodata Corp. show a 5.7% increase in rate from the same time last year, and many analysts still consider automotive production and sales as continuing bright spots for the economic expansion that began nearly four years ago.

Thursday

Employers remained reluctant to let workers go, according to the moving four-week average for initial unemployment claims, which fell for the second week in a row and dropped near the lowest level of the recovery. Labor Department data showed jobless claims about where they were five years ago, before the financial markets collapse.

Possibly reflecting a slowing in economic growth abroad as well as more cautious spending at home, America’s trade deficit shrank by 11% in March to $38.8 billion. U.S. exports declined 0.9% for the month, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reported. Imports to American consumers and businesses dropped by 2.8%, the most in three years. For the month, the U.S. trade deficit with China fell by 23.5%.

Productivity fell in the first quarter as labor output dipped even as hours increased, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Economists said lower productivity could signal that employers can’t squeeze any more work out of their staff and need to hire more. The same report showed labor costs dropping, meaning inflation still isn’t much of a near-term concern.

Friday

The April employment report showed more jobs created than expected along even greater employment in February and March than was initially estimated. The Bureau of Labor Statistics said employers added 165,000 jobs in April, less than the 12-month average and still a modest pace to recover the 2.6 million jobs still missing since the recession began. The private sector climbed back to the highest payroll level since September 2008 while public employment dropped to its lowest in more than seven years.

The ISM non-manufacturing index disappointed analysts by slowing more than expected in April. The Institute for Supply Management report still suggested continued expansion for the 40^th month in a row for non-manufacturing businesses.

Echoing some other reports suggesting a slowdown in manufacturing demand, the Commerce Department said factory orders declined in March. The monthly report is considered a volatile economic indicator but showed broad declines beyond a drop in commercial airline orders.

Where the Markets Closed for the Week

• Nasdaq – 3,379,  up 100 points or 3%
• Standard & Poor’s 500 – 1,614, up 32 points or 2%
• 10-year U.S. Treasury Note – 1.75%, up 0.08 point
• Dow Jones Industrial – 14,972, up 259 points or 1.8%

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By Joel Dresang

As broad stock market indexes hit all-time highs in April, many investors were second-guessing how much they and their portfolios were participating in those milestones.

“It’s interesting how many questions I have from clients about whether the market is too expensive and should they get out, and aren’t we about to get clobbered and all those sorts of things,” Brian Kilb, executive vice president and chief operating officer at Landaas & Company, said in a recent podcast.

Record highs also prompted some investors to wonder whether they should put more money in stocks.

“Just as when the market moves down and people feel pressure to get out, as the market moves up, people feel pressure to get in. They don’t want to miss out on a bull market,” explained Marc Amateis, vice president at Landaas & Company. “In the long run, it’s all about earnings and interest rates. But as the market gradually moves higher, more and more people feel like they may be losing out.”

Paul Coldagelli, senior vice president and Landaas & Company, said he hasn’t changed client portfolio allocations much even though historically low interest rates suggest lower expectations for bond holdings.

“For those who wonder whether they should put more in stocks, I remind them that they need to tolerate the extra risk that comes with stocks,” Paul said. “So while we can expect less from bonds going forward, we can probably expect a little bit more from stocks. But that to me doesn’t justify any significant overweight in the stock portion of a client’s portfolio.”

Most investors should have no more than 55% or 60% in stocks, regardless of their age.

How you specifically balance your portfolio should be determined by such considerations as when you need your money and how much volatility you can stand, Paul said. You shouldn’t allocate your investments based on where the markets closed yesterday.

“A client’s worst enemy is his or her own emotions – wanting to get in when things get good, wanting to get out when things get bad,” Paul said. “That’s the real risk in the markets: Not the markets themselves but the clients’ reactions to the markets.”

That’s not to say you shouldn’t occasionally adjust your portfolio to take advantage of shifts in valuations or market conditions.

“Maintain a balanced stance in your portfolio,” Marc said. “Yes, we like to look ahead and try to make some determinations on what asset classes might do better going forward for whatever reason – the interest rate environment or what we see in the markets. But it’s all about maintaining that balance and moving small amounts to an area where you think maybe there’s more opportunity.”

Many investors abandoned stocks as the markets sank five years ago, and now that the markets have recovered, they shouldn’t get back in for the wrong reasons, Paul said.

“If people are thinking maybe they ought to be putting a little bit more into stocks, they shouldn’t be doing it because of what’s happening right now. Do it because perhaps you’ve been under-allocated over the years, and you’re realizing maybe the economy isn’t falling apart as some people thought it would,” Paul said. “You’ve got to invest in stocks only if you have a longer-term time horizon for that money. You’ve got to give it at least a couple of years to bear fruit. And you’ve got to be prepared for it to go down.”

It’s a law of investments as well as physics. While several indicators suggest further growth for stocks in the long haul, short-term setbacks are natural, Marc cautioned.

“Just as we had four corrections in 2011 and 2012 of 10 percent or more in the markets, clearly, at some point, we’ll have a correction,” Marc said. “But it’s something that investors should be willing to accept.”

Joel Dresang is vice president of communications at Landaas & Company.

(initially posted April 25, 2013)

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At some point, inflation poses a threat, and the Fed raises interest rates to cool the economy. Investors should know that will happen – but probably not anytime soon, Bob Landaas says in a Money Talk Video. Here is a transcript:

I think it’s really important for investors to understand where they are in economic history, to have a very clear sense of the business cycle and know what forces are in play that will move the equities and the fixed-income markets up or down.

And the basic business cycle lasts about five years. We come out of a recession; the Federal Reserve is interested in stimulating the economy, so they lower interest rates. We go through a period of time where we’re classified as a recovering economy, where we haven’t passed the prior high-water market yet for GDP. In the United States, we were a recovering economy from June of 2009 until a year ago November, when we transitioned into an expansionary economy.

Here’s the point: The minute we’re classified as an expansionary economy, we start worrying about when the Fed is going to raise interest rates to reduce economic activity because they’re worried about inflation. It’s very unusual in this current business cycle that we’re being told by the Fed now that they have no intention of raising rates until the latter part of 2015. That’s an eternity in our business.

It’s very unusual that we’re now in this sweet spot of the business cycle, not worrying about when the Fed is going to take the proverbial punch bowl away from the party. Two years is a very long time.

I think investors have to be very careful when they analyze the Fed’s remarks. They’re not saying they’re going to raise rates at the end of ‘15, they’re saying they’re not going to raise them until then – very different.

Forecasters have been wrong repeatedly over the last five years in suggesting that inflation was at our doorstep.

Concerns about quantitative easing, stimulus spending translated for a lot of folks into how inflation was going to take off. Gold investors forced the price of the bullion to record territories. And now we’ve seen gold plunge 25 percent in value in just a couple of years. So the bloom is off that rose.  And what that tells me is that interest rates aren’t about to go up anytime soon.

When you look at the personal consumption expenditure index, buried inside the GDP report – it comes out every 90 days – it tells us that inflation is barely measurable. The Fed has said that they want 2 percent as a target. They can’t even get it up to 2 percent.

So with all the noise that we hear about interest rates are about to  take off, bonds are about to get hurt, I suspect that at some point in time inflation will rear its ugly head, but it’s nowhere near the short-time horizon. I think it’s important for investors to know where they are in the business cycle and to look at the forces that push equity prices higher.

Bob Landaas is president of Landaas & Company.

Money Talk Video by Peter May

(initially posted May 2, 2013)

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An occasional sampling of what’s catching the eye of investment professionals at Landaas & Company.

In a question-and-answer blog for the investment funds he advises, Wharton Professor Jeremy Siegel comments on how stock valuation ratios remain favorable and, among other things, how the recent drop in gold prices should make equities more attractive.

Suggested by Paul Coldagelli, senior vice president.

Recent articles in other publications, including the trade publication Financial Advisor, also cite relatively low prices on stocks, even as broad indexes have hit record highs.

Suggested by: Marc Amateis, vice president

While academic researchers are parsing spreadsheet errors and challenging modeling assumptions used in a widely influential economic study, Justin Fox writes in the Harvard Business Review that the study remains a central tenet in some policy makers’ push for austerity.

Suggested by Bob Landaas, president

 For individuals who don’t qualify for Roth IRA contributions, there may be a “backdoor” approach for socking away retirement savings that aren’t taxed when you withdraw them. A column in Marketwatch suggests it’s not necessarily a simple matter.

Suggested by: Steve Giles, vice president

(initially posted May 2, 2013)

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