Author’s note: This column was released in syndication on May 25, 2022. If you wanted to justify any investment moves your mind is contemplating right now, you had no problem finding confirmations and explanations for almost everything at last week’s Morningstar Investment Conference. Among the messages that might have sent your head spinning at the …
Author’s note: This column was released in syndication on May 18, 2022. I had an uncle whose lifetime financial goal was to amass $1 million to leave to his children. A farmer, he was frugal by nature; in his 70s, he finally reached his goal. Rather than celebrating his wealth, be turned into …
Author’s note: This column was released in syndication on May 11, 2022. There are a lot of financial concerns right now, but two items that I think were lost amid recent headlines stand out to me. In a world where the financial danger signs seem to be everywhere, it’s easy to overlook the warnings that …
Author’s note: This column was released in syndication on May 4. 2022 One of life’s truisms is that some things are better left unsaid. In the investing world, however, some things are just never said at all. Not because silence is “the right thing to do,” but more because no matter how much someone might …
Years ago, I stayed in a hotel on the Las Vegas strip where a message flashing on the big screen out front said “98% wild slots.” The sign was telling the public that the hotel’s slot machines paid out 98 percent of the money they took in, reducing the “house edge” to 2 percent. By …
I was asked this week for the best investing tip I could come up with for these wild times. My answer had nothing to do with the war in Ukraine, rising prices at the gas pump, the likelihood of interest rate increases or the stock market being off more than 10 percent and in correction …
Investors are struggling to put their finger on what has changed about the stock market of late. Yes, there’s war, the highest inflation we’ve seen in 40 years, the persistent promise/threat that interest rates are rising and more. Those economic and geopolitical events have driven the market down by more than 10 percent this year, …
The most common advice investors have gotten thus far in 2022 seems to be: “This is a good time to rebalance your portfolio.” It started right around New Year’s Day, because plenty of people simply hold fast to the idea that the start of a new year is the perfect time to rejigger a portfolio …
“Stick with the plan” is investment advice, financial strategy and part of the actual plan. That doesn’t make it easy or comfortable. With volatility up and the market down over 5 percent in January, and with higher inflation, rising interest rates, a global supply-chain crisis, international unrest, worldwide politics and more swirling around us, the …
While the stock market was off on a wild ride this past Monday, I took a break from the work day to check out one of my favorite sports websites. There, I found an “off-topic discussion” headlined “Is it time to go risk-off?” That simple headline – and the entire lengthy brouhaha that followed it …
