By Matthew Burnell

A key term often heard in investing is “asset allocation”. In simple terms this refers to the percentage of holdings in an investment portfolio to stocks, bonds, and cash. 

Using these broad categories, asset allocation reflects the amount of market risk an investor is comfortable with and is not static over time. Stocks have historically had the greatest risk and highest returns among the three major asset categories. 

Bonds are generally less volatile than stocks but typically offer more modest returns. Cash and cash equivalents such as savings deposits, certificates of deposit, treasury bills, money market deposit accounts, and money market funds are the safest investments, but offer the lowest return of the three major asset categories.

A major factor in the market risk one can tolerate is the investors time horizon. If an investor is young and plans to work for many more years, then typically they are willing to take on more market risk in hopes of better returns. In this case, stocks would be a larger percentage of their portfolio. 

Alternatively, if an investor is closer to retirement, then typically they will have less tolerance for market risk (i.e. more risk averse) since they will be using their retirement assets to fund living expenses in the near future. The more risk-averse an investor is, the more they will want to be invested in “safer” assets, like high-quality bonds and cash. Recommendations vary, but often it is strategic to have a year or two of expenses in cash to begin retirement. 

Tying this to today’s economy, if someone retired at the end of 2021 and needed to take funds from their investment portfolio to live off, they would likely be selling assets at a loss due to the down market.  If they had cash to cover this year’s expenses, this would allow them to stay invested in hopes for a market rebound before raising cash from these assets. In this scenario it would not be prudent to be 100 percent in stocks at the end of 2021 if you were planning to retire at years end and use these funds to supplement retirement income. 

By Christine Graf

Of the more than one million Americans who have died from COVID-19, a staggering 23 percent were residents of long-term care facilities. According to Brian Nealon, CEO of the Wesley Community, these sobering statistics have impacted the way Americans view nursing homes.

“People are looking to age in place even more so than they did prior to the beginning of the pandemic. It’s about ‘How do I stay at home longer?’ It could be the family home that they have been in for 50 years or it could be at one of our apartments at Woodlawn Commons or Embury.”

Located on Lawrence Street in Saratoga Springs, Woodlawn Commons offers 60 market-rate independent senior living apartments as well as 40 assisted living units. The neighboring Embury Apartments provides the local community with 192 subsidized senior apartments. Both complexes are currently at full capacity.

The Wesley Community also has a skilled nursing facility that provides both long-term care as well as short-term rehabilitation. They also offer home care through Wesley Senior Solutions and outpatient physical/occupational/speech therapy through Wesley Outpatient Therapy.