Surely one of the strangest trends on the world investment markets these days is banks paying negative rates to depositors, and bonds issued with negative interest rates. Basically that means that these institutions, and issuers, are guaranteeing a loss when you invest in their bonds or otherwise lend them money. This unusual trend, which has […]
Oil prices are getting all the blame for the recent U.S. stock market downturn, but it’s hard to see the connection when so many companies and consumers benefit from low energy costs. A better culprit is the strong dollar. The accompanying chart shows how strong the dollar has become compared with a basket of international […]
After the recent downturn in the U.S. and global stock markets, you can be pardoned if you wished that the markets were a bit tamer. Wouldn’t it be nice to get, say, a steady 4% return every year rather than all these ups and downs? Be careful what you wish for. There are at least […]
Suppose a mutual fund knew for sure which 10% of the largest U.S. companies would earn the highest returns over the next five years, over each upcoming five-year period. You’d invest in that fund and hang tight, right? A research company called Alpha Architect recently posed this as an interesting thought experiment. It divided all […]
Over half of Americans do not own any stocks, or stock-related investments, such as mutual funds, according to Bankrate’s Money Pulse survey.¹ Individuals may cite different reasons for not investing, but with important long-term financial goals, such as retirement, in the balance, the reasons may not be good enough. Why Invest? Make Money on Your […]
You may have read that Facebook founder, chairman and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has announced plans to gift substantially all of his Facebook stock to a philanthropic entity called the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, named after himself and his wife Priscilla Chan. The gift would be worth $45 billion, instantly becoming one of the largest philanthropic pools […]
Filling out your tax return is like compiling the index of a book — the book is complete, but you have to rummage (sometimes painfully) through your work again, assuring accuracy and factual content, in order to make the book easier for someone else to read. If you’re a mutual fund investor trying to determine […]
Wow! There’s no diplomatic way to say this: the global stock markets are in panic mode right now. In two weeks of trading, the U.S. S&P 500 index is down 8% on the year, which brings us close to correction territory (a 10% decline), and has some predicting a bear market (a 20% decline). On […]
As more Americans shoulder the responsibility of funding their own retirement, many rely increasingly on their 401(k) retirement plans to provide the means to pursue their investment goals. That’s because 401(k) plans offer a variety of attractive features that make investing for the future easy and potentially profitable. What is a 401(k) plan? A 401(k) […]
Have your long-term financial goals changed in the last three days? Are American companies less valuable because investors in China are panicking? Is there any reason to think that because Chinese investors are panicking, that Chinese companies are less valuable today than they were a few days ago? These are the kinds of questions to […]
