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 …
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 …
If you spent December reading or listening to the financial experts making forecasts for the year ahead, you could draw five conclusions about what to expect in 2022. We’ll see heightened inflation, higher interest rates, increased volatility, slower growth and lower investment returns. The specific predictions weren’t uniform or in complete agreement – it’s hard …
Walking my dog through the neighborhood last week, I came upon a friend who gave me his standard greeting for these occasional chance walk-bys: “What do you like in the market right now?” He knows I’m not handing out stock tips, but he usually follows it up by name-dropping, or we’ll spend a few moments …
Janet, a grandmother from New Orleans, wants to give a little something extra this year for the holidays, but doesn’t want to go to the mall to get it. She’s not shopping online for it either. She wants to buy her six grandchildren stock. “I saw something that said that a gift of stock is …
