Whether you plan on retiring early or working into your 80’s, we all need to be purposeful with our retirement planning. The mass media is replete with tricks that claim to help you achieve that million dollar portfolio (truthfully, that number is likely on the small side) and set sail into retirement so you can [...]
Are Fees Taking a Bite Out of Your Retirement Planning?
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I was reading the other day and stumbled across an article that stopped me dead in my tracks. Even if you’re not a finance nut like me, you need to know what it said. Yahoo Finance reported recently that an estimated 8,000 Baby Boomers will leave the workforce each and every day for the next 16 [...]
3 Ways to Hedge Your Portfolio Gains
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Investing begins and ends with profits, but it should start with protecting your investment capital. Mathematics dictate that losses have a greater impact on total returns than gains. A 50% loss is covered only by a 100% gain; and a 33% loss to a portfolio can only be recovered with a 50% positive return. Hedging [...]
Closed-End Funds: The Ins and Outs
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Hidden in the small cap corners of the investment universe are hundreds of closed-end funds overlooked by Wall Street. These funds do it all, from private equity-style investments in small companies to leveraged junk bond investments you can’t find anywhere else. Let’s look at the closed-end fund category and explore why investors might choose to [...]
Sector ETFs: 5 Ways to Use Them in Your Portfolio
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A quick look at Google’s stock screener reveals there are nearly 8,200 publicly-traded stocks and ETFs, far more than most people could ever care to study and understand. One of the leading fund companies, iShares, says there are just over 60 investable sectors, a number that is much more manageable. The rise of sector ETFs [...]
Do You Make These 6 Investing Mistakes?
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Everyone makes mistakes. But if you learn from those mistakes, it never a bad thing. However, it is even better if you can learn from others’ mistakes and avoid making them in the first place. Here are six common investing mistakes that you could be making right now! Read up, and try to avoid them [...]
How to Use High and Low Beta Stocks and ETFs
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Beta is a useful measure to determine how wildly one stock, fund, or other security will move with movements in a stock market index. To calculate beta, the price action of a single stock or fund is compared to the price action in the S&P 500 index. Beta can range from negative to positive infinity. [...]
The College Student’s Guide to Investing
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So, you worked all summer and now you have some extra cash on hand, maybe $1,000 or more. If so, nice job! Now, do you take that $1,000 and spent it on beer all year? Or do you take that money and invest it? Well, if you spent it on beer, you will drink fine [...]
