Nevin's Data "Points"

I’ve just passed the fifth anniversary of a small fall that took a big chunk out of my life. It was one of those little things – carrying that last box of Christmas ornaments to the basement for storage – when, just three steps from the bottom, I missed one. All I could think about in the 2 seconds it took me to tumble to the ground was trying not to fall on the ornaments (it was the last box, but who knew what precious memories were in that one?) – though that focus completely disappeared once I hit the floor. The ornaments, as it turned out, were safe. My left ankle, not so much. The next several weeks were discouragingly inconvenient when it came to navigating stairs, opening doors (even the ones that are ostensibly designed to accommodate such things), and – worst of all – showering. But perhaps the most frustrating was my rehab stint. I would not have thought it was possible in the space of just 8 weeks to forget how to walk – and yet, I found myself struggl...

You may remember little else about the 1989 film “Field of Dreams,” but odds are you have invoked a version of what is likely its most famous quote, “If you build it, they will come.” Unfortunately, for many, building retirement savings is more complicated than constructing a baseball diamond in the middle of an Iowa cornfield. Most experts will tell you that the most important decision in retirement saving is deciding how much to save, not how those savings will be invested―and yet, for years, much of the education and discussion about retirement saving has been focused on investing. Enter the target-date fund (TDF), a type of investment fund apportioned according to what investment professionals deem to be an appropriate age-based blend of stocks, bonds, and other asset classes for an individual within a particular target-date of his or her retirement. Perhaps more importantly, that apportioning is automatically rebalanced over time, as the target date approaches, becoming less f...