Financial Planning
Retirement: Proceed With Caution Before Relying on General Rules
When investing for retirement, you're likely to hear a lot of well-meaning guidance from family, friends, and others offering advice — even the media. As you weigh the potential benefits of any commonly cited investment rules, consider that most are designed for the average situation, which means they may be wrong as often as they're right. Although such guidance is usually based on sound principles and may indeed be a good starting point, be sure to think carefully about your own personal situation before taking any tips at face value. Read More
Balancing a Retirement Portfolio with Asset Allocation
The combination of investments you choose is as important as the individual investments themselves. In fact, many experts argue that it's even more important, since the mix of various types of investments accounts for most of the ups and downs of a portfolio's return. Each type of investment, or asset class, has strengths and weaknesses that let it play a specific role in your overall investing strategy. Read More
Retirement Plan Considerations at Different Stages of Life
Throughout your career, retirement planning will likely be one of the most important components of your overall financial plan. Whether you have just graduated and taken your first job, are starting a family, are enjoying your peak earning years, or are preparing to retire, your employer-sponsored retirement plan can play a key role in your financial strategies. Read More
How Aggressive Should I Be When I Invest For Retirement?
It depends. The right answer in your case will depend on a number of key factors. These include, among others, your income and assets, your attitude toward risk, whether you have access to an employer-sponsored plan at work, the age at which you plan to retire, and your projected expenses during retirement. But it's possible to lay down some guidelines that may be of help to you. Read More
Risk Management and Your Retirement Savings Plan
By investing for retirement through your employer-sponsored plan, you are helping to manage a critically important financial risk: the chance that you will outlive your money. But choosing to participate is just one step in your financial risk management strategy. You also need to manage risk within your account to help it stay on track. Read More
Wealth Due To Inheritance
If you're the beneficiary of a large inheritance, you may find yourself suddenly wealthy. Even if you expected the inheritance, you may be surprised by the size of the bequest or the diverse assets you've inherited. You'll need to evaluate your new financial position, learn to manage your sizable assets, and consider the tax consequences of your inheritance, among other issues. Read More
Are You An Investor Or A Speculator?
Recent market news — around social-media driven stock trading that created extreme price swings for shares of certain companies — may have you wondering whether you should jump into the excitement. Before you leap, you might consider this advice from legendary investor and teacher Benjamin Graham, considered the father of value investing: "The individual investor should act consistently as an investor and not as a speculator." Read More
How to Protect Your Small Business from Cyber Threats
Risk management is a key component in any successful business plan. In today's world — where data breaches are common occurrences — it's especially important for business owners to understand the digital risks they face. Are you doing all you can to mitigate the risk of a cyberattack? Read More
Holding Equities for the Long Term: Time vs. Timing
Legendary investor Warren Buffett is famous for his long-term perspective. He has said that he likes to make investments he would be comfortable holding even if the market shut down for 10 years. Investing with an eye to the long term is particularly important with stocks. Historically, equities have typically outperformed bonds, cash, and inflation, though past performance is no guarantee of future results and those returns also have involved higher volatility. Read More
The ABCs of Mutual Fund Share Classes
When investing in a mutual fund, you may have the opportunity to choose among several share classes, most commonly Class A, Class B, and Class C. This multi-class structure offers you the opportunity to select a share class that is best suited to your investment goals. The only differences among these share classes typically revolve around how much you will be charged for buying the fund, when you will pay any sales charges that apply, and the amount you will pay in annual fees and expenses. Read More
Back to Basics: Diversification and Asset Allocation
When investing, particularly for long-term goals, there are two concepts you will likely hear about over and over again — diversification and asset allocation. Diversification helps limit exposure to loss in any one investment or one type of investment, while asset allocation provides a blueprint to help guide your investment decisions. Read More
GameStop, Reddit, and Market Mania: What You Need to Know
Over the course of 11 trading days from January 13 to January 28, 2021, the stock of GameStop, a struggling brick-and-mortar video game retailer, skyrocketed by more than 2,200% — creating a mix of excitement and concern throughout the financial world, as well as among many people who pay little attention to the stock market. Read More
The Traits of a Good Investor and How Women Can Make the Most of Them
Many women manage their own money. This includes women who have always been doing so and women who are relatively new to the world of investing, for whatever reason. Regardless of your level of investing experience, there are certain investor traits that can prove advantageous for anyone. Read More
Lump Sum vs. Dollar Cost Averaging: Which Is Better?
Some people go swimming by diving into the pool; others prefer to edge into the water gradually, especially if the water's cold. A decision about putting money into an investment can be somewhat similar. Is it best to invest your money all at once, putting a lump sum into something you believe will do well? Or should you invest smaller amounts regularly over time to try to minimize the risk that you might invest at precisely the wrong moment? Read More
Holding Equities For The Long Term: Time vs. Timing
Legendary investor Warren Buffett is famous for his long-term perspective. He has said that he likes to make investments he would be comfortable holding even if the market shut down for 10 years. Investing with an eye to the long term is particularly important with stocks. Historically, equities have typically outperformed bonds, cash, and inflation, though past performance is no guarantee of future results and those returns also have involved higher volatility.Read More
Balancing Your Investment Choices With Asset Allocation
A chocolate cake. Pasta. A pancake. They're all very different, but they generally involve flour, eggs, and perhaps a liquid. Depending on how much of each ingredient you use, you can get very different outcomes. The same is true of your investments. Balancing a portfolio means combining various types of investments using a recipe that's appropriate for you. Read More
The Power of Dividends In A Portfolio
Since 2003, when the top federal income tax rate on qualified dividends was reduced from a maximum of 38.6%, dividends have acquired renewed respect. Favorable tax treatment isn't the only reason, either; the ability of dividends to provide income and potentially help mitigate market volatility is also attractive to investors. As baby boomers approach retirement and begin to focus on income-producing investments, the long-term demand for high-quality, reliable dividends is likely to increase. Read More
Socially Responsible Investing
Investing with an eye toward promoting social, political, or environmental concerns (or at least not supporting activities you feel are harmful) doesn't mean you have to forgo pursuing a return on your money. Socially responsible investing may allow you to further both your own economic interests and a greater good, in whatever way you define that term. Read More
Active vs. Passive Portfolio Management
One of the longest-standing debates in investing is over the relative merits of active portfolio management versus passive management. With an actively managed portfolio, a manager tries to beat the performance of a given benchmark index by using his or her judgment in selecting individual securities and deciding when to buy and sell them. A passively managed portfolio attempts to match that benchmark performance, and in the process, minimize expenses that can reduce an investor's net return. Each camp has strong advocates who argue that the advantages of its approach outweigh those for the opposite side. Read More
Charitable Giving
Charitable giving can play an important role in many estate plans. Philanthropy cannot only give you great personal satisfaction, it can also give you a current income tax deduction, let you avoid capital gains tax, and reduce the amount of taxes your estate may owe when you die. There are many ways to give to charity. You can make gifts during your lifetime or at your death. You can make gifts outright or use a trust. You can name a charity as a beneficiary in your will, or designate a charity as a beneficiary of your retirement plan or life insurance policy. Or, if your gift is substantial, you can establish a private foundation, community foundation, or donor-advised fund. Read More
Managing a Concentrated Stock Position
A large holding of a single stock that dominates your portfolio carries unique challenges. On the one hand, it may represent a large portion of your portfolio because it has done well in the past. On the other hand, you may feel you need more diversification. You may have new financial goals that require a shift in strategy; for example, you may hold a growth stock, but now want your assets to produce additional income. Or, your investing focus may simply have shifted from growing your net worth to protecting what you've accumulated. Read More
Evaluating Volatility
Figures that show an average return on an investment are only part of the story. They don't tell how that return was achieved. Is the investment a volatile one, with a lot of ups and downs in price or returns that varied dramatically? Or was its performance relatively steady, with prices and returns that were very similar month to month or year after year? Understanding volatility measures can help you evaluate whether a particular investment is suited to your own investing style. Read More
Monitoring Your Portfolio
You probably already know you need to monitor your investment portfolio and update it periodically. Even if you've chosen an asset allocation, market forces may quickly begin to tweak it. For example, if stock prices go up, you may eventually find yourself with a greater percentage of stocks in your portfolio than you want. If stock prices go down, you might worry that you won't be able to reach your financial goals. Read More
Upside Down: What Does the Yield Curve Suggest About Growth?
On August 14, 2019, the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 800 points, losing 3% of its value in its biggest drop of the year. The Nasdaq Composite also lost 3%, while the S&P 500 lost 2.9%. The slide started with bad economic news from Germany and China, which triggered a flight to the relative safety of U.S. Treasury securities. High demand briefly pushed the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note below the two-year note for the first time since 2007. Read More
Exchange-Traded Funds: Do They Belong in Your Portfolio?
Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have become increasingly popular since they were introduced in the United States in the mid-1990s. Their tax efficiencies and relatively low investing costs have attracted investors who like the idea of combining the diversification of mutual funds with the trading flexibility of stocks. The proliferation of ETF choices means they can now be used to create a broad portfolio of core investments, to target narrower sectors, or to gain market exposure that might otherwise be too difficult or costly to access. Read More