The action surrounding GameStop stock, the Robinhood trading app and short-selling in general have raised questions in the minds of many investors. Here are a few of them that were sent my way. From Paul in Seattle: Settle an argument between me and my son. He started investing using Robinhood. I have been invested for …
For the first time in their lives, my daughters last week wished they had been into video games when they were kids. Had that been their interest, their stock portfolios might have included GameStop shares. “And now we’d be rich,” my oldest daughter, said in a group text with me and her younger sister, imagining …
Steve in Daytona Beach Shores, Fla., a self-described patriot, says that after watching the events at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, he wondered for the first time in his adult life if he should “Invest American.” Throughout his decades as an investor, Steve has tried to buy American and invest in domestic companies. His …
(This column was released for publication on Dec. 30, 2020.) In a year filled with entirely too much death, no one should mourn the passing of a mutual fund. Funds and ETFs don’t deserve your grief. They’re useful tools, not friends or loved ones, even when they help you succeed. Hundreds of them die every …
(This column was released for publication on Dec. 23, 2020.) Let’s all resolve to make 2021 a better year than the miserable 12 months we have just gone through. Boom! Achievable resolution – one everyone can agree on – in the bag. After a year with so much misery, we can stop the resolutions right …
(This column was released for publication on Dec. 16, 2020.) In ordinary times, the New Year is when people evaluate themselves, making resolves – many of them financial – to improve their daily lives and/or to reach goals. These aren’t ordinary times. Setting goals and making resolutions feels hollow this year, as better times clearly …
(This column was released for publication on Nov. 26, 2020.) The Dow Jones Industrial Average wasn’t really reacting to cabinet appointments or potential vaccines when it broke through 30,000 and held that level for the first time on Tuesday. The famed benchmark isn’t a sentient being; it reflects the headlines and underlying economic and financial …
Last week, in describing gifts of stock as “the ultimate 2020 holiday gift,” I acted as if shares are a kind of one-size-fits-all item. Yes, you pick individual companies, but that’s not much different from selecting the color on a more conventional gift. But the questions I got prove that giving stocks for the holidays …
You’ve heard a lot this year about how hard it can be for youngsters to get a good education when they’re not in the classroom. But this year also has brought investors what amounts to the greatest home-teaching tool the stock market has ever seen, and the perfect gift to give your favorite young investor …
As the election results were tallied past midnight Tuesday, I was struck by how the results really would not make much difference for my investments over the next four years, the next decade or the rest of my life. That’s not because the president can’t do good things or that the election results won’t impact …
