Assigning a beneficiary to your account is easy. Getting it right can be more complicated than you think and a mistake can be costly to your loved ones. Consider the “horrible” experience a widow shared with WBAL TV. Judith Kiefer’s husband died unexpectedly in his sleep at the […]
Read more →Bond interest rates are at historic lows in response to the Federal Reserve’s efforts to stimulate the economy. Over six years ago the Fed took actions to stimulate the economy by reducing short-term interest rates to near zero and reducing longer-term interest rates through a bond buying […]
Read more →Markets move in two directions, up and down. Ok, sometimes sidewise for a while. Five years of a remarkably steady ‘upward’ movement in stock prices can give a false sense of security to an otherwise prudent investor who may get caught off guard by a swift reversal […]
Read more →The past 15 years have given investors a gut wrenching, and at times, exhilarating ride on a stock market roller coaster. The chart below tracks the S&P 500 Index price from March 3, 1999 through February 28, 2014. Most of you are familiar with the chart, but […]
Read more →It is an exciting new year, but let us take a moment to review the events that moved the market in 2013. There is no doubt that 2013 was an extraordinary year with an incredible stock market rally, but there is a lot that we learned in […]
Read more →There is a long-standing debate over which is better – active vs passive management styles. In other words, investing in actively managed funds that rely on stock picking – or passively managed funds that buy the securities in an index. Twice a year, Standard & Poor’s issues “S&P Indices […]
Read more →Your Home: A Retirement Investment or an Expense? A persistent debate surrounds the question of whether your home is an investment or simply the expense of providing a roof over your head. Regardless of which camp you are in, the home is the 2nd most important retirement […]
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WHAT IS AN ETF? ETFs (exchange-traded funds) have existed for 20 years yet many people still are not familiar with them which is why I get asked the “What is an ETF?” question yet. Let me try to offer some clarity. Before I get started I would […]
Read more →Recently a client asked me to recommend some websites for investment research. I do a lot of investment research so I have a slew of resources but I wanted to provide my client with easy-to-use, free research websites. The following three free websites provide objective information to […]
Read more →Gary Shilling, economist and author of “The Age of Deleveraging: Investment Strategies for a Decade of Slow Growth and Deflation”, forecasts a market crash in 2013. In a January, 2013 Forbes article, Shilling says we could see an S&P 500 decline to 800 in 2013. (S&P 500 […]
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