Parents who take on student loans could get seriously crushed in the long run
Parents who take on student loans could get seriously crushed in the long run (NerdWallet)
A new report from NerdWallet suggests it may not be the best financial decision for parents to borrow thousands of dollars to pay for a child's expensive university because it hurts their ability to accrue wealth during the crucial retirement-saving years.
"People will lend you money to go to college, but they won't lend you money to retire," Delia Fernandez, a certified financial planner and president of Fernandez Financial Advisory LLC in Los Alamitos, California, told NerdWallet.
Brazil's outlook looks increasingly uncertain amid the ongoing political drama (Advisor Perspectives)
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff's popularity has contracted sharply amid corruption allegations. Most recently, Brazil's tourism minister resigned and the country's largest party broke with the ruling coalition.
"While a renewed push for structural reforms and a turnaround in consumer and market confidence would unquestionably be positive for Brazil's people and investors, it's exceedingly difficult to predict how things will unfold politically or economically over the next year or two, the minimum time horizon for long-term investors like ourselves," wrote Charles Roth of Thornburg Investment Management.
"But a few things are clear. Brazilian corporate earnings will continue to get worse before they get better, regardless of whether needed but painful reforms are actually pursued. That said, there are select Brazilian companies with strong business models that should be able to negotiate, or even benefit from, the adverse macro environment," he added.
Millennials aren't too worried about retirement for now (US Census)
On the flip side, millennials feel pretty optimistic.
"Such differences might simply reflect intergenerational differences of hope and experience - the challenges foreseen during retirement may seem easiest to resolve by those furthest from it," suggests the US Census Bureau report.
Betterment just announced its biggest round of financing yet (ThinkAdvisor)
The largest independent robo-advisor, Betterment, which has nearly $4 billion in assets and over 150,000 customers, closed on a $100 million round of funding led by the Swedish investment company Kinnevik, reports Bernice Napach.
Betterment's founder and CEO, Jon Stein, told ThinkAdvisor that the robo-advisor will use the money "to build out more and better advice products" in its institutional platform for advisors as well as new products in its 401(k) platform, which launched in January.
Mercer Advisors and Kanaly Trust merged to create an $8 billion firm (InvestmentNews)
Kanaly Trust and Mercer Advisors, the parent of registered investment advisor Mercer Global Advisors, are merging to create a more than $8 billion-asset firm, reports Christine Idzelis. Both are owned by private equity firms.
"RIAs have been looking to growth through acquisitions, ramping up dealmaking over the past couple years with record activity that may continue in 2016 with the help of private-equity firms," reports Idzelis.