Last week, I suggested taking advantage of an upsurge in cyclical stocks. Today, I propose giving large-cap growth stocks serious consideration. Doug Wood, Director of Research at Bennington Asset Management completed an analysis of equity category performance over the past ten years, and surprisingly, large-cap growth was stuck in the bottom of the basement. So, why recommend a horse that finished in last place for the past decade?

Because equity sector performance, like my dear wife, Marea, is unpredictable and fickle.

Marea celebrated her 39th birthday again on Sunday. As you may know from previous updates, I have around a 30% success rate when it comes to buying gifts for Marea. Batting 300 is great for a leadoff hitter, but bad for my wallet. Thankfully, my achievements in selecting securities are somewhat higher than my ability to choose presents for her and my daughter, Taylor.

Erring on the side of caution, I bought a wide selection of haute couture from Brooks Brothers, including a “skort,” matching top and belt, and a pair of earrings. (For readers who are uninformed, a skort is a pair of shorts that look like a skirt. Let me warn you, if you Google “skort,” spell it correctly or else the FBI may be knocking at your door.) You see: I applied a prudent investment approach to gift buying by diversifying into clothing, jewelry, and a couple of different accessories.

Here are the results. The bag and earnings were not “fun” selections, but the skort (spelled correctly), belt, and top were hits. Three out of five is a pretty solid performance, whether we are referring to buying gifts or choosing investments.

So back to investing. Those big dividend-producers such as First Trust Morningstar Leaders (FDL) now appear to be selling at premium. Thus, I am recommending that you lighten up on dividend producers and rotate into large-cap growth. I have begun purchasing the Vanguard Russell 1000 Index ETF Fund (VONE). Please understand that I’m not suggesting to sell completely out of the big-dividend producers because it is important to stay diversified.

Be aware that the proverbial elephant in the investment room is a potential 5+% pullback as we enter the summer months. However, investment managers have about the same success rate at predicting market dips and surges as I do in shopping for my girls which is why we all recommend diversification. Regardless of a potential pullback, this economy is getting stronger, which should lead to a fourth-quarter/long term surge in equities and an opening for large-cap growth to gain traction in the current bull market.

To quickly recap my wife’s latest 39th birthday, Marea is trading in or as we say in investment speak rotating out of the Brooks Brothers bag for a more costly but “fun” Burberry bag. What a surprise!

On a far more serious note, this past week, HealthView writer Chris Leone’s mother, Joan, suffered a brain aneurysm. The good news is that her prognosis is excellent and she is expected to make a full recovery thanks to the surgeons at Massachusetts General Hospital. The HealthView family hopes that Joan will soon be home enjoying her kids and grandkids.

By the way Joan, if I didn’t mention this last spring when we met, I want you to know that I’ve worked with a large number of writers and without a doubt, your son Chris is the best in the business! I’m sure that comes from your side of the family. Get well soon.

Have a productive week.

No Chris, you cannot have a raise.

The Update is written by Chris Leone and Ron Mastrogiovanni.

Ron Mastrogiovanni
President

HealthView Services, Inc.
150A Andover Street
Danvers, MA 01923
mobile: 617-875-9313
fax: 978-561-1857

rm@hvsfinancial.com

http://www.hvsfinancial.com

What an exciting week!

Prior to attending a relaxing business meeting on Amelia Island, I had the opportunity to spend couple of sun-filled days with my wife, kids, and a throng of tourists laden with bandoliers full of money at a popular Florida theme park. While the Dow posted a new high, housing prices jumped over 9.5% (the largest increase in years), auto sales hit the highest level since the great recession, and the U.S. economy added 165,000 new jobs this past April, I was whirling on roller-coasters and copping autographs from cartoon characters.

Despite the fact that I was with thousands of people who thought nothing of forking over 4 plus dollars for bottled water, negative sentiments still remain at an all-time high, which might account for the masses willingly parting with their hard-earned dollars at an over-priced playland rather than putting them to work in the markets.

Don’t be discouraged by the recent 4% dip or that new highs may ultimately lead to sell-offs; P/E ratios (price to earnings ratios), a measure of how expensive stocks are priced, are below historical averages. The current market splash may create MickeyFinn-induced expectations of a roller-coaster drop in prices, but don’t be fooled. As I have mentioned in past Updates, take a conservative approach and slowly dollar cost average into equity over the spring and summer months, as these usually provide investors with decent market entry points.

As a matter of fact, this is a good point in time to have an advisor give your portfolio a Cinderella makeover, and remember, you don’t need a Hopper Pass to move a small portion of your assets from fixed income to equities.

Getting back to my “vacation,” one must marvel not only at how efficiently a modern-day theme park operates, but also the immeasurable marketing genius that motivates us to pay outrageous prices to ride merry-go-rounds and bumper cars. (Oh, but they’re Toy Story bumper cars!) Best of all for theme park stockholders, customers will even pay to shop! One huge outdoor shopping mall offers goods from all over the world, including Canada, France, Italy, Germany Mexico, and China. Isn’t that amazing? And it only costs $90 per person to enter!

Ever hear of Walmart or Amazon?

Can someone please explain to me the appeal of slowly evaporating in tropical hell while your significant other purchases jewelry in “Italy” from a young accented saleswoman who grew up down the street in Kissimmee? (As an aside, I did notice that when gentlemen my age entered a shop for a little AC relief, many of them attempted to avoid glaring at a sales associate’s country-specific décolletage.)

And, it doesn’t stop there. Most of us travel by air to get to the park, and therefore, we need a place to stay. You got it: rooms are priced at a premium, but we needn’t worry because bundled pricing is available, so the family and I could feel justified about waiting in line for over an hour to enjoy a three-minute tea cup ride. What a business! We can almost draw a parallel from this insanity to the recent stock market surge. Despite a deep recession in Europe, saber rattling by the new North Korean leader, never ending conflict in the Middle East, a dysfunctional U.S. Government, and the budget cutting sequester, equity markets still keep climbing that imaginary Space Mountain.

Anyway, my six-year-old daughter, Taylor, had a great time at all the attractions; my wife, Marea, made her contribution to the Florida economy by buying a host of items we cannot live without—like a painted portrait of Taylor (even though I had my camera and could have just as easily taken a picture); my 29 year-old-son relaxed by the pool, and I, of course, meandered after Marea and Taylor like an agitated, disgruntled old man. Aside from my daughter’s glee, there were a few bright spots, including a relaxing dinner at a French restaurant where we ordered Choucroute Garnier and ice cold German beer; however, I kept coming back to one question: where are the pedicabs? Theme park planners would certainly need to carve out a “pedicab travel lane,” but I think they would be as popular as cyclical stocks are today.

Anyway, the Monorail has not left the station…yet. You do have time to get on this year’s equity express. Slightly accelerated domestic growth and positive moves overseas are likely to lead to a reasonably strong, if not magical, second half of the year for the world economy.

Ron Mastrogiovanni
President
HealthView Services, Inc.
150A Andover Street
Danvers, MA 01923
mobile: 617-875-9313
fax: 978-561-1857

rm@hvsfinancial.com

http://www.hvsfinancial.com

You can “Ask Bob” questions concerning healthcare in retirement, Social Security or working in retirement by emailing me at rm@hvsfinancial.com.

The next Update will be posted on 5/6/13.

Have a productive week.

Ron

Ron Mastrogiovanni
President
HealthView Services, Inc.
150A Andover Street
Danvers, MA 01923
mobile: 617-875-9313
fax: 978-561-1857

rm@hvsfinancial.com

http://www.hvsfinancial.com

As you may remember, a few weeks ago in ALBUQUERQUE, I gave a presentation on the complex topic of Social Security optimization. My talk was based on the attached guide written by Beth Allen and Chris Leone.

I think Boomers will find it informative.

Have a productive week.

Regards,

Ron

Ron Mastrogiovanni
President
HealthView Services, Inc.
150A Andover Street
Danvers, MA 01923
mobile: 617-875-9313
fax: 978-561-1857

rm@hvsfinancial.com

http://www.hvsfinancial.com

For this week’s Update, I would like to submit some advice on two unrelated topics from an integral member of the HealthView team, Bob Powell. Bob has more than 20 years of financial services and media experience and his work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, MarketWatch, and Your Money. He will be contributing periodically to the Weekly Update.

Working in retirement

If you are looking for some sound advice on how to stay employed or get re-employed in your later years, consider reading Andrea Coombes’ Working Retirement column, which appears weekly on MarketWatch.com.

In a recent commentary, Coombes explained how older Americans can utilize LinkedIn when searching for a job. Her top-line recommendations: post a photo; make your headline sing (it’s the first line under your name); fix your summary; complete your profile; make it personal; check out the competition; join groups; and follow companies. Read “Boomers: Make the most of LinkedIn job search.

In another column, Coombes outlined how older Americans can perfect their résumé. Her top-line recommendations: keep it timely; keep it focused; tell a story; make sure your contact information is up to date; tailor the format to the situation; stick to a simple format, and adjust your attitude.

Read “7 tips for the perfect boomer résumé.”

Speaking of working in retirement, 63% of baby boomers who responded to a recent survey from Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) say the most important aspect of job satisfaction is the opportunity to use skills and abilities. The other desired elements are job security (61%), compensation/pay (60%), communication between employees and senior management (59%), and the organization’s financial stability (56%).

Read SHRM’s 2012 employee job satisfaction and engagement: How employees are dealing with uncertainty survey.

By the way, if you’re looking for fun and useful facts about aging and work, check out the Sloan Center on Aging & Work at Boston College, which promotes quality of employment as an imperative for the 21st Century multi-generational workforce.

The Bitter (and Costly) End?

Some 10% of all healthcare dollars ($270 billion) are spent in the last year of life. According to a recent report on MarketPlace, much of that can be attributed to what some refer to as “the high cost of saying goodbye,” when those final days require costly decisions, and emotion can easily overrun practicality.

In the years to come, it’s likely that more and more of us will face the question: which is more important — our quantity of life or our quality of life—and at what price?

Given that, many experts recommend creating an advance directive, a legal document that allows you to convey your decisions about end-of-life care ahead of time. The advance directive provides a way for you to clearly communicate your last wishes to family, friends, and health care professionals.

In a recent issue of Retirement Weekly, David Doukas, M.D., a professor at the University of Louisville, suggested that every adult person of sound mind should consider having an advance directive—either a living will or a durable power of attorney for healthcare (or preferably both)—in order to lay out their values and preferences for future care when individuals are no longer capable of making decisions for themselves.[1]

According Doukas, living will and durable power-of-attorney forms are freely available through the state Attorney General’s office, your doctor’s office, your local hospital, or online. (Doukas created a free web page with Links to Advance Directive Forms. If links are broken on this page, it’s is due to changes in state web sites since 2007.) Another great resource is a book Doukas co-wrote with William Reichel, titled Planning for Uncertainty: A Guide to Living Wills and Other Advance Directives for Health Care (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007). In the days of retirement uncertainty, it is certainly a worthwhile read.

Ron Mastrogiovanni
President
HealthView Services, Inc.
150A Andover Street
Danvers, MA 01923
mobile: 617-875-9313
fax: 978-561-1857
rm@hvsfinancial.com

http://www.hvsfinancial.com

For this week’s Update, I would like to submit some advice on two unrelated topics from an integral member of the HealthView team, Bob Powell. Bob has more than 20 years of financial services and media experience and his work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, MarketWatch, and Your Money. He will be contributing periodically to the Weekly Update.

Working in retirement

If you are looking for some sound advice on how to stay employed or get re-employed in your later years, consider reading Andrea Coombes’ Working Retirement column, which appears weekly on MarketWatch.com.

In a recent commentary, Coombes explained how older Americans can utilize LinkedIn when searching for a job. Her top-line recommendations: post a photo; make your headline sing (it’s the first line under your name); fix your summary; complete your profile; make it personal; check out the competition; join groups; and follow companies. Read “Boomers: Make the most of LinkedIn job search.

In another column, Coombes outlined how older Americans can perfect their résumé. Her top-line recommendations: keep it timely; keep it focused; tell a story; make sure your contact information is up to date; tailor the format to the situation; stick to a simple format, and adjust your attitude.

Read “7 tips for the perfect boomer résumé.”

Speaking of working in retirement, 63% of baby boomers who responded to a recent survey from Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) say the most important aspect of job satisfaction is the opportunity to use skills and abilities. The other desired elements are job security (61%), compensation/pay (60%), communication between employees and senior management (59%), and the organization’s financial stability (56%).

Read SHRM’s 2012 employee job satisfaction and engagement: How employees are dealing with uncertainty survey.

By the way, if you’re looking for fun and useful facts about aging and work, check out the Sloan Center on Aging & Work at Boston College, which promotes quality of employment as an imperative for the 21st Century multi-generational workforce.

The Bitter (and Costly) End?

Some 10% of all healthcare dollars ($270 billion) are spent in the last year of life. According to a recent report on MarketPlace, much of that can be attributed to what some refer to as “the high cost of saying goodbye,” when those final days require costly decisions, and emotion can easily overrun practicality.

In the years to come, it’s likely that more and more of us will face the question: which is more important — our quantity of life or our quality of life—and at what price?

Given that, many experts recommend creating an advance directive, a legal document that allows you to convey your decisions about end-of-life care ahead of time. The advance directive provides a way for you to clearly communicate your last wishes to family, friends, and health care professionals.

In a recent issue of Retirement Weekly, David Doukas, M.D., a professor at the University of Louisville, suggested that every adult person of sound mind should consider having an advance directive—either a living will or a durable power of attorney for healthcare (or preferably both)—in order to lay out their values and preferences for future care when individuals are no longer capable of making decisions for themselves.[1]

According Doukas, living will and durable power-of-attorney forms are freely available through the state Attorney General’s office, your doctor’s office, your local hospital, or online. (Doukas created a free web page with Links to Advance Directive Forms. If links are broken on this page, it’s is due to changes in state web sites since 2007.) Another great resource is a book Doukas co-wrote with William Reichel, titled Planning for Uncertainty: A Guide to Living Wills and Other Advance Directives for Health Care (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007). In the days of retirement uncertainty, it is certainly a worthwhile read.

Ron Mastrogiovanni
President
HealthView Services, Inc.
150A Andover Street
Danvers, MA 01923

mobile: 617-875-9313
fax: 978-561-1857

rm@hvsfinancial.com

http://www.hvsfinancial.com

A golfing friend of mine named Kelsey has been asking me to write about an altercation he and his wife had with a wild animal last summer. The problem is that if I publish it, PETA would end up picketing both of our houses.

Kelsey is a brawny ex-marine married to an attractive, fiery Italian girl named Arrabiata. (What she sees in him, I’ll never know.) Kelsey is fortunate that his gregarious personality and self proclaimed “good looks” trump his fashion sense because, according to Arrabiata, she almost stopped dating Kelsey early in the relationship after he, “dressed like a nerd on one date and a dweeb on the next one.”

Anyway, Kelsey was playing golf one morning when he received a frantic call from Arrabiata.

“There’s a rabid bat screeching and walking around our deck!!! I can’t even let the kids out of the house!”

The gallant Kelsey calmly responded as many other men would have in his situation: “I’m golfing. I’ll be home after the round.”

After a few choice expressions that I cannot repeat here, Arrabiata hung up on her dweeby ex-marine husband and decided to take matters into her own hands. While her kids played a board game, Arrabiata selected her weapon of choice: a 12-gallon spaghetti pot. She quickly filled it with boiling water, unlocked the back door, and hurled its contents at the rabid rodent.

Apparently, this just ticked the bat off even more, and it continued to menace the family.

Meanwhile, Kelsey, apparently unfazed by the phone call, finished his round (shooting a respectable 87), apologized to the guys for leaving early, and drove home to take care of the screeching old bat. Upon arrival, he went into his garage, picked up a shovel, and did what marines are trained to do. To give the new “Batman” credit, after putting the animal out of its misery, he did ceremoniously bury it and wash the remnants off of his deck.

Killing the bat was one thing; generating the courage to face an enraged Arrabiata was an entirely different matter.

So after placating my friend by recounting this tale, how do I segway into investing? Advise to buy Petco? Or the parent companies of Barilla or Prince spaghetti?

How about considering Time Warner (TWX)? The owner of DC Comics, which houses the very popular Batman franchise, will be releasing the much-anticipated Man of Steel this summer. Perhaps worth a small play?

On the more serious side, let’s examine the first quarter results of our three portfolios:

Portfolio Asset Q1 Risk 2013

Allocation Return Target

· Conservative Portfolio #1 50/40/10 5.79% Low 6.0%

· Conservative Portfolio #2 55/40/5 6.03% Low 6.5%

· Marea’s Managed Portfolio 70/20/10 6.50% Moderate 8.0%

The Dow (up 11.25%) had its best one-quarter performance in 15 years, and the S&P (up 10.03%) surpassed highs last seen back in 2007. During this surge, I have been selectively taking profits while slowly increasing exposure to equities. On the fixed income side, I remain overweight in short-term bond funds.

The market may have hit new highs, and there may very well be a pullback, but I believe equities will continue to increase further into 2013.

Have a productive week.

This non-publishable Update was written by Chris Leone and Ron Mastrogiovanni.

(Reuters) – We’ve all heard the scary numbers. Experts say Americans need to set aside hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay for health care in retirement — $200,000, $300,000 or more. Billions and billions, as the late astronomer Carl Sagan would have said.

But these forecasts are just average figures; it is harder to get a handle on what your own health care spending will really be in retirement. And with so many struggling to save anything at all, what’s the point of trying to plan specifically for health care?

A new study points to the gap between expert forecasts and consumer understanding of the issue. The researchers – law professors at the University of California, Los Angeles, and Harvard University – asked over 1,000 Americans, age 40 to 80, what they expect to spend on health care in retirement and compared their answers to forecast data from the Urban Institute and the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI).

The EBRI lifetime cost forecast for out-of-pocket healthcare spending by women retiring in 2020 at age 65 was a median of $156,000, rising to $357,000 on the high end. Yet women surveyed said they’d spend a median of just $30,000. Men thought they’d spend $60,000; slightly more than half the EBRI-projected median for men of $109,000.
The respondents didn’t seem to understand the factors that can make pinpointing health costs so difficult: medical cost inflation, the possibility of policy changes affecting Medicare, and the unpredictability of health itself. While they may have known some of the costs – Medicare premiums, for example – they tended to underestimate the importance of their own health in determining future spending.

“Even if someone got the median numbers right, they may not understand that they might not be at that number,” said Allison Hoffman, an assistant professor at the UCLA School of Law who specializes in health-care law and policy, and co-author of the report. “Some people will need less care, some will need more. And, depending on their own situation in retirement, the numbers could be double or half the number.”
So that’s the challenge we all face in planning for health care in retirement: coping with uncertainty and controlling what we can control.

Medicare will cover about half your health-care costs in retirement, with the rest paid out of pocket. Among the expenses the typical retiree will have to cover are premiums for Medicare Part B (outpatient services), Medicare Part D (prescription drugs), and a Medigap supplemental policy, which usually covers co-pays and puts a ceiling on out-of-pocket costs in the event of a catastrophic health problem.

There is no charge for the hospitalization coverage provided by Medicare Part A. Future retirees also should count on spending money for dental care, vision care, co-pays and long-term care, if that’s needed.
To plan for your own healthcare spending, consider these key variables:
- Longevity. Your current age, expected year of retirement and gender all are factors that can help predict the total number of years of healthcare you’ll need to fund.

- Major health conditions. If you’re less healthy you’ll spend more annually – but you may not live as long.

- Location. Medicare B and D premiums don’t vary nationally, but Medigap premiums are set and regulated at the state level and vary substantially. For example, Medigap policies in low-cost Hawaii come in at an average of $4,400 less per year than a comparable plan in Illinois.

- Income in retirement. High-income seniors pay stiff Part B and Part D premium surcharges. The surcharges affect single filers with more than $85,000 in annual income and joint tax filers with income over $170,000. Currently, the high-income surcharges affect just 5 percent of seniors, but that is on track to hit 14 percent by 2019 under the Affordable Care Act.

“Every case is different,” says Ron Mastrogiovanni, CEO of HealthView Services, which develops financial planning software for financial advisers focused on health care. Mastrogiovanni’s software takes into account all the variables – and it illustrates ways to pay for projected health-care expenses using income from Social Security, pensions and savings (you can test drive a light edition of the software yourself for free here: here ).

He ran some hypothetical scenarios for a 55-year-old woman – let’s call her Gail – who plans to retire at age 67. Her lifetime cost projections varied by hundreds of thousands of dollars. If Gail is healthy, has income below the high-income surcharge trigger, and lives to age 89, she can expect to spend $224,000 on healthcare in her retirement lifetime.
Remember, all these numbers are expressed in future dollars, so medical inflation is a big variable driving the figures. Mastrogiovanni’s software assumes health-care prices will rise about 7 percent a year – a number that may or may not come to pass.

Looking at this in today’s dollars, if Gail is able to devote 15 percent of her future Social Security checks to fund health care, she would need to have $60,000 in the bank today available for future health care needs – or save $6,800 per year between now and retirement at 67, Mastrogiovanni says.

What does this mean in the broader context of retirement planning and saving? If you’re following the old rule of thumb that you’ll need to replace 80 percent of pre-retirement income in retirement, health care can be considered part of that total, Mastrogiovanni says.

But since health care is a key non-discretionary expense – and one you can’t really control – you might need to adjust other areas of spending if you end up having higher-than-expected healthcare costs.

After all, the key is looking for ways to turn those billions and billions into something more manageable.

By Mark Miller
CHICAGO | Thu Mar 14, 2013 8:57am EDT

Danvers, MA (January 31, 2013)

Ten million Baby Boomers are now over age 65 and the majority (60%) feel they are not prepared to pay for healthcare costs after they retire. Even more telling, most (92%) are unaware of how much wealth they will need to handle these costs in retirement.

To address this increasingly pressing concern, HealthView Services (HVS) has unveiled HealthWealthLink, an innovative, powerful software platform, also available as an iPad application, to help advisors work with clients to determine how much healthcare expense they can expect in retirement and how to pay for it.
“The superheroes in this situation are the advisors. Many Boomers think that Medicare will take care of their healthcare costs in retirement, but they could not be more wrong and are just realizing that fact. Boomers are looking to their financial professionals for answers and our platform is designed to give them those answers,” said Ron Mastrogiovanni, CEO of HVS.

HealthWealthLink is the first and only software system which calculates precise healthcare cost projections throughout a client’s entire retirement lifestage and tailored to the client’s health, wealth and income situation. Its foundation is backed by doctors and insurance actuaries for use in developing financial plans and includes all legislative decisions affecting healthcare and Medicare costs at both the federal and state levels.
“An advisor inputs a client’s individual responses to a few questions such as age, gender, health status, income range and state of residence. Out comes a personalized report with longevity projections as well Medicare Part A, D and Medigap costs and long-term care expense projections,” he explained.

Just as important as knowing the expense gap is finding the right solution for the client to fund that gap. HealthWealthLink makes that easy for the advisor and client. The system offers:
• Healthcare calculator and Medicare calculator
• Social Security and Pension Income Calculators as a potential source of healthcare cost funding
• Customized Dashboard of Investment and Insurance Funding solutions such as mutual funds, annuities, life insurance, and long-term care insurance, to name a few.
• Interactive Illustration System that allows the advisor to run “what if” scenarios to show clients how an initial investment in a financial product may reduce the healthcare cost burden.
• Personalized Client Reports that are presented in easy-to-understand language and helps the client make educated, stress-free decisions.

“For advisors, this tool positions them as a valued, trusted resource around one of the most misunderstood and complicated aspects of retirement planning. Just one decision from a client on the appropriate financial product(s) to use to solve the problem more than pays for the annual software license. Plus, it can work in conjunction with any financial planning software an advisor is currently using,” he concluded.

The entire package includes HealthWealthLink branded customized software, iPad application, online training sessions, client marketing and education materials including lead generation communications, a guide to healthcare issues, one-click calculator to drive inquiries, client seminar and content for client newsletter. For more information contact: Ron Mastrogiovanni, hvsfinancial.com, 617-875-9313.

About HealthView Services

Founded in 2008 by a team of seasoned financial and healthcare industry executives, HealthView Services created the HealthWealthLink platform to take the fear out of escalating healthcare costs in retirement by offering a planning tool and solutions to create a more secure future for retirees. At its core, HealthWealthLink is a combination of financial planning and health-risk assessment software that provides financial institutions, independent advisors and health firms with a unique tool to better serve their clients planning for retirement and those already in retirement.
Media Contact: Susan B. Chanley, sbumsteadchanley@comcast.net, 781.587.0115

I had a speaking engagement in Albuquerque, New Mexico last week, where I delivered a presentation based on research conducted by my colleagues, Beth Allen and Chris Leone, on the topics of working in retirement and Social Security optimization strategies. My talk targeted an audience of financial advisors from around the country who are eager to understand how to maximize Social Security benefits for their clients.

Let’s face it: the 2008 market plummet could not have come at a worse time for Boomers, many of whom were perched at the precipice of a comfortable retirement, but are now faced with dwindling savings and the prospect of working well into their sixth decade. Now more than ever, it is vital for retirees to understand the impact of Social Security and strategize when to begin collecting benefits. Tomes have been written on the topic, but I will attempt to clarify the most basic principles in future Updates. However, for the moment, please allow me to digress onto more pressing matters.

Albuquerque.

Phonetically, it sounds like it should be spelled al-buh-kir-kee. I asked over a dozen people, and no one even came close to spelling it correctly. It must really be a drag living in a city where people can’t write the address on an envelope without looking it up in the dictionary. In our twitter and instant message-obsessed world, we already live in a grammatically defunct society as it is. Imagine the butchering that Post Office employees must see on a daily basis!

So I decided to look up the origin of the name. Apparently, it comes from Iberia and the Moorish “Abu al-Qurq”, which means Land of the Cork Oak. It is true there are many large cork oak plantations in parts of Spain and Portugal, so I guess Albuquerque = Land of the Cork Oak.

I did a little more research on odd-named cities. How would you like to live in these tongue twisted destinations?

· Puyallup, Washington

· Natchitoches, Louisiana

· Ypsilanti, Michigan

· Talliaferro County, GA (is pronounced Tolliver County.)

· Cudahy, WI

· Gloucester, MA (where a friend of mine resides)

· Woolloomooloo, Australia (Try to quickly say Woolloomooloo three times!)

This little bit of investigation is known as “toponymy,” the study of how places are named. When I learned this, I came across the word “metonymy,” which is a figure of speech that takes the name of one thing and applies it to another. An example of a metonymy is counting heads—which refers to counting people.

My metonymy of the week is income drain.

My personal household income drain is Nordstrom’s (or it’s so-called discount store, The Rack) because of my wife, Marea’s, daily contributions to the chains bottom line. As the economy continues to rebound, and the mall goers of the world flock back to shopping, the stock (JWN) is worth considering. Nordstrom is currently selling at $53.32 and offers a 2.3% dividend yield.

Other solid income drains in my household include TJ Maxx, Marshalls and HomeGoods. All three “discount chains” (saving me loads of dough) are subs of TJX, a stock I must and do hold in my portfolio to help offset the monthly Amex and Visa bills. TJX is currently selling at 46.62 and the stock generates a 1% dividend yield. A more conservative approach to the above mentioned individual equity positions is to increase exposure to the SPDR S&P 500 (SPY).

By the way, the four most frequently looked up words on Merriam-Webster.com over the past four months are pragmatic, disposition, touché and lastly, didactic.

Happy Easter.

Happy Passover.

The Update is written by Chris Leone and Ron Mastrogiovanni.