Tag Archives: income

What Is the Income Factor in U.S. Equities?

Posted By Financial Independence Hub | October 5, 2016

By Christopher Gannatti, Associate Director of Research, WisdomTree

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

The factor discussion is gaining popularity in the world of smart beta indexing. Size, value, momentum, minimum volatility, quality—these are all factors in the current discussion, and for the initiated they are becoming part of the common index lexicon.

But are investors really looking for these specific factors by name? We explore how these factors relate to real-world investment goals.

Translating Factors into Investment Goals

Some commonly referenced investment goals are:

• Keeping principal stable for unexpected expenses and emergencies

• Generating a certain average annual return to meet future goals in retirement

• Drawing income in order to meet planned expenses

We focus on income, as WisdomTree was the first to create a suite of U.S. equity Indexes weighted by cash dividends.

Defining the Income Factor

Dividends: The Foundation of the Smart Beta Movement

Posted By Financial Independence Hub | September 16, 2016

By Christopher Gannatti, Associate Director of Research, WisdomTree

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

Smart beta exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are rapidly proliferating and capturing assets at a faster clip than the broader ETF industry. In 2015, 143 smart beta ETFs came to market, [Note 1] representing half of the year’s new ETF launches, or double the percentage of traditional beta products born last year.

Dividend strategies are one of the primary drivers of smart beta ETF growth. Smart beta ETFs had about $616 billion in assets under management at the end of 2015, [Note 2] and more than a quarter of that total was allocated to dividend-oriented funds.

Since the publication of the widely followed Fama-French research in 1993, outperformance of fundamentally weighted indexes has mostly been attributed to the market factor, the size factor (mid- and small caps outperforming larger stocks) and the value factor. [Note 3] Later, momentum factor was added as an accepted driver of fundamental weighting’s ability to top market cap-weighted strategies.

At WisdomTree, we believe weighting by dividends elevates fundamental indexing or smart beta. In 2006, 25 dividend ETFs [Note 4] came to market, 22 of which courtesy of WisdomTree. Our Dividend Stream® weighting methodology offers distinct advantages over weighting by market capitalization, dividend yield or focusing on the number of consecutive years that companies have increased payouts. Continue Reading…

Withdrawing from your Retirement Nest Egg

Posted By Financial Independence Hub | May 12, 2016

By Marie Engen, Boomer & Echo

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

You’ve been saving all your working life and now that you have entered your retirement phase, it’s time to start drawing from your savings. In some circumstances there will be people who will be able to live off their dividends and interest alone. Most retirees, however, will have to start spending the money they have saved.

Once you have decided on the amount of income you need annually for your retirement lifestyle and determined how much of it will come from your guaranteed pensions, the remainder must be withdrawn from your nest egg.

You may have multiple accounts and both registered and unregistered savings. Your investments could be stocks and bonds, ETFs and/or mutual funds. You might be in a position where you must withdraw a minimum amount from your RRIFs.

This example will show you how you can manage your retirement withdrawals, taking the total of all your accounts as a whole. It assumes dividends and interest will be reinvested, but you can use them as part of your yearly cash allotment if you so choose. You just have to adjust as necessary.

A model for retirement withdrawals

Meet newly retired Rodney and Pamela O’Brien. They have a retirement nest egg totalling $500,000. Continue Reading…

Debt is more than a four-letter word during your drawdown years

Posted By Financial Independence Hub | April 15, 2016

By Doug Dahmer, Emeritus Financial Strategies

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

The month of April is always a particularly busy time for Retirement Income Specialists. One of our key roles is to provide each of our clients with a year-by-year draw-down recipe: outlining how much and where to source their annual cash flow needs.

The ultimate goal is not to minimize the amount of income tax they pay on any given year, but instead to minimize the amount of tax they pay over the balance of their lives. (Please note these two goals are frequently confused, and seldom accomplished simultaneously as often you will need to pay more tax sooner in order to pay significantly more later.)

One of our many sources of insight for the guidance we provide is found within our clients’ annual tax returns. At the same time our clients’ previous year’s tax returns act much like a report card, keeping them informed as to how well we performed our role over the previous year, as we endeavor to accomplish this important long term goal.

Debt can more than offset taxes

Building Your Financial “Stop Doing” List: Stop Chasing Dividends

Posted By Financial Independence Hub | March 1, 2016

By Steve Lowrie, Lowrie Financial

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

During the 20+ years I’ve been a financial advisor, I’ve noticed how often the market keeps playing the same devilish tricks, each time in a guise that differs just enough to fool us all over again.

Today’s “Stop Doing” post exposes one of these more common tricks of the trade: Investors who are seeking a reliable income stream for retirement should STOP building their investment strategy around dividend-paying stocks (or higher-interest-yielding bonds) in isolation, without considering them in the context of their total wealth management.

Speaking of devilish acts, let’s revisit the Wall Street Journal columnist Jason Zweig’s “The Devil’s Financial Dictionary” (emphasis is ours):