Published: Fri, 14 Jan 2022 21:02:02 +0000
Friday, January 14, 2022 Index Performance View enlarged chart. U.S. Markets Lower The major equity markets finished the week lower as concerns about inflation and higher interest rates continue to weigh on investors’ minds. A weaker than expected December retail … Continue reading →
Published: Fri, 14 Jan 2022 16:58:38 +0000
Friday, January 14, 2022 Over the past 10 years, no sector has been worse than the S&P 500 Energy sector. It has gained just 2.4% annualized over the past 10 years, the only sector without a double-digit return, and all … Continue reading →
Published: Thu, 13 Jan 2022 13:00:29 +0000
Thursday, January 13, 2022 Lately we’ve seen two things swirling that some investors think could hurt them down the road. The idea that higher yields and rate hikes are bad is all over the place, but it all might not … Continue reading →
Published: Wed, 12 Jan 2022 16:58:57 +0000
Wednesday, January 12, 2022 Inflation soared 7% in 2021 according to Consumer Price Index (CPI) data released this morning by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, as seen in the LPL Chart of the Day, its highest level since 1982. There … Continue reading →
Published: Tue, 11 Jan 2022 17:00:53 +0000
Tuesday, January 11, 2022 After negative returns for many fixed income sectors in 2021, the last thing fixed income investors wanted to see to start 2022 was more red, but that is unfortunately what happened. The Federal Reserve (Fed) meeting … Continue reading →
Published: Fri, 07 Jan 2022 21:27:01 +0000
Friday, January 7, 2022 Index Performance View enlarged chart. U.S. and International Equities Major Markets Lower The major equity markets finished the week lower, as concerns about inflation and interest rates intensified after the Federal Reserve’s (Fed) minutes were released … Continue reading →
Published: Fri, 07 Jan 2022 17:37:48 +0000
Friday, January 7, 2022 A disappointing jobs report against a messy backdrop of uncertain seasonal adjustments, diverging internal surveys, unknown future effects from the Omicron variant, and the expiration of the monthly child tax credit is unlikely to alter the … Continue reading →
Published: Thu, 06 Jan 2022 17:28:57 +0000
January 6, 2022 In this week’s Weekly Market Commentary (click here) we shared some lessons investors may have learned—or re-learned—in 2021 (LPL Research strategists included). One of those lessons was about how valuations are rarely good timing tools. That lesson … Continue reading →
Published: Wed, 05 Jan 2022 17:00:27 +0000
Wednesday, January 5, 2022 Here is one chart about Santa and five more charts (or tables) that caught our attention recently. Well, stocks did what they were supposed to do, which was gain during the historically bullish Santa Claus Rally … Continue reading →
Published: Tue, 04 Jan 2022 19:00:45 +0000
Tuesday, January 4, 2022 Index Performance View enlarged chart. U.S. and International Equities Equities finished December on a strong note as both the S&P 500 Index and the Dow Industrials rose over 4%. These markets took in stride higher COVID-19 … Continue reading →
Published: Tue, 04 Jan 2022 16:58:16 +0000
Tuesday, January 4, 2022 Fixed income investors aren’t used to negative total returns for core fixed income (as measured by the Bloomberg U.S. Aggregate Bond Index) but that is exactly what happened in 2021. Last year, rising interest rates were … Continue reading →
Published: Fri, 31 Dec 2021 20:05:32 +0000
Friday, December 31, 2021 Index Performance View enlarged chart. U.S. and International Equities Major Markets in the Green The major equity markets finished the week higher, as the Santa Claus rally continued to take hold even amid concerns about the … Continue reading →
Published: Thu, 30 Dec 2021 17:08:26 +0000
Thursday, December 30, 2021 Here it is, our final blog of 2021, and what better topic than the blog itself and the readers who make writing it so rewarding. Our aim with the blog is simple: every day provide market … Continue reading →
Published: Wed, 29 Dec 2021 19:23:17 +0000
Wednesday, December 29, 2021 In today’s blog, we will take a look at some of the best charts and tables we shared all year. There are so many charts and tables that sum up how special 2021 was, but at … Continue reading →
Published: Tue, 28 Dec 2021 16:58:17 +0000
Tuesday, December 27, 2021 The municipal market has been a relative bright spot for core fixed income investors in 2021. While most of the other “safe” parts of the core fixed income universe have generated negative returns this year, the … Continue reading →
Published: Thu, 23 Dec 2021 19:07:34 +0000
Thursday, December 23, 2021 Index Performance View enlarged chart. U.S. and International Equities Major Markets higher The major equity markets finished the week higher, as the Santa Claus rally took hold even amid concerns about the Omicron variant’s effects on … Continue reading →
Published: Thu, 23 Dec 2021 16:49:40 +0000
Thursday, December 23, 2021 As we head into the final week of a strong year for equities markets, we at LPL Research are thinking about the season of giving, to friends and loved ones as we wind down a difficult … Continue reading →
Published: Wed, 22 Dec 2021 17:00:56 +0000
Wednesday, December 22, 2021 “If Santa should fail to call, bears may come to Broad and Wall.” —Yale Hirsh December is widely known as one of the best months of the year for stocks, but most don’t realize that the … Continue reading →
Published: Tue, 21 Dec 2021 16:58:26 +0000
Tuesday, December 21, 2021 At the conclusion of last week’s Federal Reserve (Fed) meeting, the Fed released its dot plot, which showed the median forecast among officials is now for three rate hikes in 2022. Moreover, it showed eight rate … Continue reading →
Published: Fri, 17 Dec 2021 21:03:07 +0000
Friday, December 17, 2021 Index Performance View enlarged chart. U.S. and International Equities Major Markets Lower The major equity markets finished the week lower, reversing some of last week’s gains on the back of this week’s Federal Open Market Committee … Continue reading →
Published: Fri, 17 Dec 2021 16:58:44 +0000
December 17, 2021 For those of us who haven’t already started holiday vacations, we all know this was Federal Reserve (Fed) meeting week. In anticipation of how much investors would be focused on the Fed this winter, we put a … Continue reading →
Published: Thu, 16 Dec 2021 17:00:30 +0000
Thursday, December 16, 2021 The Federal Reserve (Fed) ended its two-day Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting yesterday and there were some notable shifts to monetary policy, although these shifts were largely expected by markets. After months of carefully communicating … Continue reading →
Published: Wed, 15 Dec 2021 17:00:14 +0000
Wednesday, December 15, 2021 As we head into the end of 2021, here are five charts that caught our attention. First up, last week was one of the best weeks of the year for stocks, and that could be a … Continue reading →
Published: Tue, 14 Dec 2021 15:58:49 +0000
Tuesday, December 14, 2021 The S&P 500 closed at a record high on Friday, but only two of its eleven underlying sectors could say the same. The first was technology, which as we noted last month, has been showing consistent … Continue reading →
Published: Fri, 10 Dec 2021 21:09:22 +0000
Index Performance View enlarged chart. U.S. and International Equities Major Markets Higher The major equity markets finished the week solidly higher, reversing last week’s declines. Traders took solace in the health reports that the effects of the Omicron variant may … Continue reading →
Published: Fri, 10 Dec 2021 16:58:35 +0000
Friday, December 10, 2021 The Consumer Price Index, the most well known measure of inflation, climbed 6.8% over the last year through November, according to data released today by the Labor Department. While in line with economists’ consensus expectation, that’s … Continue reading →
Published: Thu, 09 Dec 2021 17:10:39 +0000
Thursday, December 9, 2021 The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released its monthly Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) report this week revealing that the number of American workers who are voluntarily quitting their jobs may have peaked, … Continue reading →
Published: Wed, 08 Dec 2021 17:00:03 +0000
Wednesday, December 8, 2021 LPL Research is extremely excited about the release of Outlook 2022: Passing the Baton. You can see the interactive version of our Outlook here. In conjunction with the release of the Outlook, this week in the … Continue reading →
Published: Tue, 07 Dec 2021 16:58:55 +0000
Tuesday, December 7, 2021 After months of carefully communicating the Federal Reserve’s (Fed) plan to reduce its asset purchases toward the middle of 2022, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell seemingly sped up that timetable during his Congressional testimony last week. While … Continue reading →
Published: Tue, 07 Dec 2021 14:20:19 +0000
Tuesday, December 7, 2021 The entire team at LPL Research is so excited to announce the release of Outlook 2022: Passing the Baton. It is hard to put into words the amount of time and cross department organization it takes … Continue reading →
Published: Fri, 03 Dec 2021 21:02:21 +0000
Friday, December 3, 2021 Index Performance View enlarged chart. U.S. and International Equities Major Markets Lower The major equity markets finished the week lower. The markets continued to pull back following last Friday’s announcement concerning the new Omicron COVID-19 variant … Continue reading →
Published: Fri, 03 Dec 2021 17:00:31 +0000
Friday, December 3, 2021 The domestic economy added just 210,000 jobs during November, well below Bloomberg-surveyed economists’ consensus forecast for a gain of 550,000 and below October’s revised tally of 546,000. The net revision to prior months was positive but … Continue reading →
Published: Thu, 02 Dec 2021 16:58:01 +0000
Thursday, December 2, 2021 With recent concerns about Federal Reserve (Fed) policy and the Omicron variant, it’s easy to forget that we’re in a period of economic acceleration, although now with some added uncertainty. Yesterday’s manufacturing data confirmed that overall … Continue reading →
Published: Wed, 01 Dec 2021 20:42:02 +0000
Market Blog Wednesday, December 1, 2021 Index Performance View enlarged chart. U.S. and International Equities Equities finished November mixed as the S&P 500 and the Dow Industrials finished lower while the Nasdaq Composite gained over 0.3%. Investor concerns surrounding the … Continue reading →
Published: Wed, 01 Dec 2021 14:10:54 +0000
Market Blog Wednesday, December 1, 2021 Here comes December, historically a pretty solid month for stocks, but now we have the Omicron variant wreaking havoc on markets. “What a difference a week makes. A week ago stocks were at all-time … Continue reading →
Published: Tue, 30 Nov 2021 16:58:27 +0000
Tuesday, November 30, 2021 Financial markets tend to be relatively quiet the day after Thanksgiving but this year was a notable exception. With the news that a new COVID-19 variant—Omicron—had been discovered and is spreading quickly, prices of risk assets … Continue reading →
Published: Fri, 26 Nov 2021 18:08:39 +0000
Friday, November 26, 2021 Index Performance View enlarged chart. U.S. and International Equities Major Markets Lower The major equity markets finished the week lower as markets gave up ground Friday during a holiday-shortened trading session given new COVID-19 variant concerns … Continue reading →
Published: Wed, 24 Nov 2021 17:00:34 +0000
Wednesday, November 24, 2021 The big news this week was Jerome Powell will remain in charge of the Federal Reserve (Fed) for four more years, so we wanted to do a quick blog that looked at how stocks have done … Continue reading →
Published: Tue, 23 Nov 2021 16:58:40 +0000
Tuesday, November 23, 2021 President Biden officially nominated Chairman Jerome Powell to a second four-year term as Chairman of the Federal Reserve (Fed) and elevated current Fed Governor Lael Brainard to Vice Chair of the Committee. Before the announcement, there … Continue reading →
Published: Fri, 19 Nov 2021 21:05:20 +0000
Friday, November 19, 2021 Index Performance View enlarged chart. U.S. and International Equities Major Markets Mixed The major equity markets finished the week mixed as inflation worries continued to play a role in investors’ minds amid an excellent third quarter … Continue reading →
It depends on how much you’ve earned and how long you have worked under the Social Security system. Your retirement benefit will be based on your average lifetime earnings. Don't worry if you started out as a busboy and worked your way up to executive chef—only your highest 35 years of earnings will count.
The amount you receive will also be affected by whether you start collecting benefits early (you'll get less), whether you collect benefits late (you'll get more), whether you work after you retire, whether other family members receive benefits based on your earnings record, whether you collect certain other government benefits, and whether the cost of living rises.
You can also sign up for a my Social Security account so that you can view your online Social Security Statement. Your statement contains a detailed record of your earnings, as well as estimates of retirement, survivor's, and disability benefits. It also includes other information about Social Security that will be very useful when planning for retirement.
Contact a VyStar Investment Services Financial Advisor today by phone (904) 908-2495 or email VISMarketing@vystarcu.org.
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The size of the Social Security check you’ll receive is the result of your earnings record and age when you start taking benefits. Your “full retirement age,” when you’ve earned 100% of those benefits, is 66 or 67, depending on when you were born. Collect early, before full retirement age, and you’ll pay a penalty—you’ll receive a smaller check.
The choice of your start date locks in the size of your checks. Some Americans grab Social Security as soon as they can. For widows and widowers, that’s age 60. For everyone else, it’s 62, which has been and still is the most popular age to start benefits, according to U.S. News & World Report.
If you hold off filing until after full retirement, your checks earn a bonus of 8% per year. The longer you wait, the bigger your benefit becomes, until age 70. After 70, there’s no benefit to waiting longer.
Waiting makes sense if you’re healthy and members of your family tend to live longer. A $2,000 benefit, for example, becomes $2,640 if your full retirement age is 66 and you wait four more years.
A quarter of today’s 65-year-olds will live past 90, according to the Social Security Administration. You may need those checks for a long time.
Here’s a hypothetical example of the pros and cons for someone eligible for $750 per month at 62 who waits and claims benefits at 70: