I make a lot of plans and try to do a lot, but having a heart attack in my 40s was not part of any plan. With terrible family cardiac history and my own weight problem, I can’t say I never foresaw the possibility – even, perhaps, the probability – but it was the last …
The mailbag is full of notes from people with all-too-common financial dilemmas these days. I’ll try to help some of the letter writers in the hope that the answers help you too. Question from David H. in Short Pump, Va.: When I lost my job early in the pandemic, there seemed to be a lot …
Many traditions have been lost to the coronavirus pandemic this year, but my hope throughout the summer has been that Halloween might be spared. Since 2016 at my house, instead of “Trick or treat?” the question has been “Cash or Candy?” It’s become a fun, fabulous and favorite personal tradition, where I help neighborhood kids …
Just like seemingly everything else in 2020, the market has been a place for extremes. From February 20 through March 23 this year, the stock market – as measured by the Standard & Poor’s 500 – lost 33 percent of its value. It then gained over 60 percent from that March low to the start …
(This column was released for publication on Sept. 16, 2020.) Darren in Brusly, La., is worried for his job in the coronavirus pandemic and is hoping to “protect” his credit score “in case anything bad happens” at work. He wrote me asking if there was any way to pay the keepers of credit scores …
I don’t feel better off right now. I barely know anyone who does. Yet, intuitively, I should feel better. The stock market is way up over the last few months, and it has taken my accounts up with it. Gross domestic product seems to be growing faster than expected, the latest jobs report shows 1.4 …
The stock market has returned to record levels, powered by a few of the world’s biggest and best-known companies. That has spawned talk of how it’s a “stock-picker’s market.” Poppycock. The market observers who say this drivel aren’t particularly observant, or they would have long ago noticed that good stock-picking never goes out of style. …
My father owned ExxonMobil stock. It was his idea of what a blue-chip looked like. He would have been a bit blue himself this week with the news that the company is getting booted from the Dow Jones Industrial Average, and I can’t help think that the conversation and process I would have run through …
Have you seen the reports about how people have been drinking more alcohol than normal during the pandemic? You can find proof of the trend by asking investors what they expect the stock market to be going forward, because it’s clear that they’re drunk on the market’s rally from the February lows and blotto on …
Jack Bogle, the founder of the Vanguard Group, used to suggest that investors think of Social Security as if it was a bond they had bought and paid for. The idea, he said, was to act as if that money was in your bond portfolio, generating income in the future, and to base your planning …
