In recent years, a new category of assets has appeared on the scene, which can be more complicated to pass on at someone’s death than stocks, bonds and cash. The list includes such valuable property as digital domain names, social media accounts, websites and blogs that you manage, and pretty much anything stored on the […]
Years ago, the way to most efficiently save on estate taxes was to set up credit shelter trusts that would pour assets from one spouse to another when death occurred, so that both spouses would get the maximum estate tax exemption. In those simpler days, people who didn’t have to pay estate taxes didn’t have […]
Chances are, you know that it takes steady savings to accumulate wealth. A recent article in Business Insider actually calculated how much you’d have to invest each day in order to become a millionaire. Suppose your investments earn an average 7% yearly return, and you want to have $1 million by the age of 65. […]
Any seasoned investor will tell you that buying one stock is riskier than buying a basket of stocks. The underlying concept is diversification—the idea that the movement of the shares of many different companies, taken together, will be smoother than the trajectory of any one of them. But the ETF market has managed to create […]
Yesterday, the U.S. stock markets went up 2.39%, the highest one-day return in a month. Analysts attributed the rise to a variety of economic news that suggested that the American economy is not, after all, plunging into recession. The buoyant mood among investors may not last, but for many, it’s a welcome sign that things […]
Financial resolutions often fall prey to the same procrastination that hinders personal aspirations. Yet current volatility in the financial markets along with other unsettling factors such as the impending presidential election and widespread geopolitical unrest may have led investors to pause, rethink their financial situations, and set new expectations for the future. Resolutions typically fall […]
The heightened volatility that has afflicted the U.S. stock market for the past several months points out the potential benefits of active portfolio management. What distinguishes an active investment style from a passive style — and what benefits may active management provide in a volatile market? Dueling Styles Because active managers may rely on market […]
There’s no question that we experience emotional pain and anxiety when our portfolios are losing money due to market downturns. Behavioral scientists tell us that we feel losses twice as keenly as positive returns. But that doesn’t tell us what we really want to know, which is: other than selling at the wrong time and […]
If you want to look like a brilliant stock market analyst, keep predicting the same thing over and over again until it finally happens. A great example of this marketing strategy is newsletter publisher Marc Faber, whose website modestly describes him as “an international investor known for his uncanny predictions of the stock market and […]
The Federal Reserve has set the wheels in motion and for the first time in nearly a decade, interest rates are on an upward trajectory. The initial hike was a modest one quarter of one percentage point — not a game changer for most investors or consumers. And from what Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen telegraphed […]
