SPRING SEES MORE SHOPPING Last week, the Commerce Department announced a 1.2% jump in retail sales for May, topping the 1.1% rise forecast by analysts polled by Briefing.com. Driving the improvement: a 3.7% leap in gas station sales. Purchases increased 2.1% at home improvement outlets, 2.0% at auto dealers and auto parts stores, 1.5% at…

NO LETUP IN HIRING IN MAY Last Thursday, the International Monetary Fund took the unusual step of offering the Federal Reserve some advice – it urged the central bank not to raise interest rates until 2016. Given the large hiring gains this spring, the Fed may choose to ignore that recommendation. U.S. employers added 280,000…

You learn lessons as you invest in pursuit of long-run goals. Some of these lessons are conveyed and reinforced when you begin saving for retirement, and others you glean along the way.     First & foremost, you learn to shut out much of the “noise.” News outlets take the temperature of global markets five days…

Maybe you have seen those will-in-a-box kits. Maybe you have even considered picking one up. Think twice about that. While you can draft a will on your own, there are plenty of reasons why you may not want to go that route. Most people do it to save money, but they may overlook or forget…

THREE KEY REAL ESTATE INDICATORS IMPRESS All of a sudden, the housing market looks much healthier. The Census Bureau reported a 6.8% jump in new home buying in April, and the National Association of Realtors said its pending home sales index improved 3.4% in that month to 108.7 (its best reading since May 2006). The…

A big payout leads to a big question. If you are taking a lump sum pension payout from your former employer, what is the next step for that money? It will be integral to your retirement; how can you make it work harder for you? Rolling it over might be the right thing to do.…

Before retirement begins, gather what you need. Put as much documentation as you can in one place, for you and those you love. It could be a password-protected online vault; it could be a file cabinet; it could be a file folder. Regardless of what it is, by centralizing the location of important papers you…

Estate planning professionals often contend with ambiguities. A plan may need to be modified in the future when some development in family life occurs – and there are some estate planning tools that may help to provide that kind of flexibility. Standby trusts. These are unfunded revocable living trusts that go into effect when and…

If you have a child with special needs, you face long-run financial demands that cannot be fully met through federal and state assistance. What can you do to try and meet them? A special needs trust may provide an answer to this dilemma. This is a trust designed to provide for assorted care and lifestyle…

RETAIL SALES WERE FLAT IN APRIL Analysts surveyed by MarketWatch had forecast only a 0.1% advance, so this news was no shock. Still, it was disappointing after the (revised) 1.1% gain noted by the Commerce Department for March. The year-over-year improvement in the pace of retail sales was just 0.9%; last August, it reached 5.0%.…