(This column was released to newspapers on July 7, 2020.) Rick in Maumee, Ohio, has used stay-at-home time during the coronavirus pandemic to “clean up my life.” There was a de-cluttering of the house, followed by a purging of his financial files (in accordance with guidelines I laid out in a recent column). He …
Everyone is anxious for life to get back to “normal” right now. Normal, however, has changed. You may miss the gang from the office, the night out at the bar or the chance to go to the movies, but you may be making the most of the relationships with your kitchen, garden, yard or with …
These days, “Don’t look” is an actual investment strategy. It’s not just espoused by plenty of experts, but it is being followed by millions of investors whose portfolios were swamped under the effects of the coronavirus pandemic and the accompanying economic shutdown. It’s not a terrible strategy either, at least for investors who had a …
In 35 years covering investments, I have seen “the end” countless times. Dividend investing purportedly was dying while the Internet bubble was inflating in the 1990s, buy-and-hold investing has been on the way out countless times in the last quarter century, asset allocation hasn’t worked as expected throughout the current bull market, international diversification is …
My father had one bad financial habit that he never got over. Over the years, he built a diversified investment portfolio that covered virtually all corners of the investment spectrum, except for one. He could never buy a small-cap mutual fund or invest in small or micro-cap stocks. Oh, he tried a few times, but …
Rich in Orchard Beach, Md., likes to check in on his investment portfolio most nights after dinner. It’s a quick look-see to make sure everything is fine, as expected, all right. It was not any of those things when he checked in on Monday, August 12. His shares of Vanguard Wellesley were …
About five years ago, I noted that financial consumers should favor naps over apps and put down their smartphones to give their finances and themselves some rest. While noting that typical consumers will fare better by focusing less on money than by watching the numbers change moment-by-moment, I acknowledged that there were plenty of cool …
“Grandpa Jack” is 80-years young, and along with scrapbooks and mementos of a life well-lived, he still has every check he’s ever written, along with copies of every bill he ever paid. As he prepares to move from his long-time family home in Pembroke, Mass. to an apartment attached to his daughter’s house …
I attended an investment sales seminar this week where the speaker tried to persuade the audience to take his approach to retirement investing. It involved something most of the audience had never heard of. Pitched as a “7702 Plan,” it was actually a life-insurance policy, a twist on the more standard annuity-sales pitch …
When it comes to mutual funds, investors have always gotten what they didn’t pay for. Now that they aren’t paying much, they need to decide if the money they’re spending is worth the results they’re getting. Morningstar Inc. recently released its latest fund-fee study, which showed that what investors paid to own …
