Dr M Khalid's global village blog

The potential pitfalls threatening a successful retirement are many, and the biggest errors fall into both psychological and financial categories, according to financial advisors. CNBC spoke with eight advisors, who between them came up with the eight most common mistakes made in retirement. 1. Lack of clarity "The greatest concern we have with our clients is the psychological part," said Michael Randolph, senior advisor and certified financial planner with Willow Creek Wealth Management. "They'll say: 'What do I do? Paint the fences? Then what?'" Advisors get many retired clients who are "lost" and not focused on their finances or their future, he added, because after having been very successful throughout their career, they now feel they no longer have a sense of control. Read More Busting age-based investing myths "They feel cast adrift, [and] it's troubling, [so] it's very important to think it through bef...

Industries in the health care and energy sectors grew substantially over the last five years, while jobs in real estate and construction continued to shrink. Industries that paid in the middle of the wage spectrum generally lost jobs. And while the economy overall is back to its pre-recession level, it hasn't added the roughly 10 million jobs needed to keep up with growth in the working-age population.  Just keep clicking the 'next' button'. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/06/05/upshot/how-the-recession-reshaped-the-economy-in-255-charts.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0

EBay  chief John Donahoe says he sees bitcoin and other digital currencies playing an "important role" in PayPal, the e-commerce giant's Internet payment platform. "We're going to have to integrate digital currencies in our wallet," Donahoe said in an interview on CNBC's " Squawk Box ." While refusing to say when, the eBay CEO talked broadly about the advantages of bitcoin and why he owns some. "I'm not buying it as an investment. I'm buying it to understand how it can be used." "I think there are two sides of it, the investment side and the digital currency side," he continued in the interview, which aired Thursday. "I'm more interested in the digital currency side about how you and I can exchange value seamlessly using technology." http://www.cnbc.com/id/101734293

When word first got out that Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, was planning to build two degree programs specializing in big data analytics, vice provost of undergraduate education Donald Feke's in-box filled up with inquiries from students clamoring to get in—long before the programs were ready. No wonder. McKinsey Global Institute  predicts  a shortage in the U.S. of up to almost 200,000 workers with deep analytical skills, and a deficit of 1.5 million managers capable of using big data analytics for actionable insights in their decision-making. Programs in data analytics and other STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields, including cybersecurity, simply aren't keeping up with the demand. That's why corporations are increasingly partnering with colleges and universities at an undergraduate level to help develop the 21st-century skills businesses and the economy will need. For students concerned with finding employment after college, ...

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101641018

Krystyna Recoskie, expecting her third child in July, says she’s done with full-time employment. The 37-year-old wants to spend more time with her kids, so she’s cut back her hours to a couple of shifts a week as a cardiac sonographer at the  Children’s Hospital  of Eastern Ontario in Ottawa. “Some people want to be at work, but I want to be there to pick up my kid from the bus stop,” she said. “I just wish that some moms wouldn’t judge me and think that I am throwing away my career.” The choices of people such as Recoskie may spell trouble for  Canada  and other economies with aging workforces, which have been supported in recent decades by women who broke social barriers to join the labor market. The long-term economic growth trend in Canada will slow because female participation in the workforce has probably crested, says Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development economist Peter Jarrett. “We have been living off the fact that steadily more yo...

(Reuters) - U.S. house price rises will likely slow further over the next two years, curbed by tight lending standards, slow wage growth and a lack of first time buyers, a Reuters poll found. Home price gains, which have already begun to moderate, are seen rising 7.5 percent this year but only 4.0 percent by 2016, according to the median forecasts of the 31 analysts surveyed. That is a significant slowdown from the 12.4 percent rise reported in the 12 months through March on the S&P/Case-Shiller gauge of property values in 20 metropolitan areas. The analysts polled did not expect any major pickup in  housing market  activity, with annual rises in house prices gradually coming down through to 2016. "It is improving slowly, which is good. It should be measured. We don't want to go back to stupid money," Mark Goldman, a real estate expert at San Diego State University in California said, referring to the eve of the Great Recession when subprime lending was ram...