From the category archives:

Profitable Investments

Middle Class: The Money Class? Part Two

July 29, 2010

Part one of our series on the Middle Class: The Money Class? can be found here. Who are you? The mutual fund industry has been asking that for decades and the answers still aren’t quite clear.  But they are getting closer to understanding that the vast majority (85%) of the owners of mutual funds are [...]

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The F in ETF Doesn’t Mean Free

July 25, 2010

Exchange Traded Funds or ETFs, those index funds that mimics those of the mutual fund world that trade openly on the stock exchange throughout the day have made investors who don’t use them wonder if they are missing something and those that do, want the F in ETF to stand for free. But they only [...]

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Congratulations, You were Warned

July 24, 2010

The line in the Vanguard press release dated October 6th, 2009 offered the following: “We also caution against using short-term performance figures—however attractive—to guide your investment decisions.”  Why would they say such a thing after the run-up, that even they suggested was, too-far-too soon?  And could the worry that this short-term outlook would tempt the [...]

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Mutual Fund Investing: Index Funds vs Actively-Managed Funds

July 15, 2010

Almost all of the information you receive on this epic battle suggests that it will rage on for years with no apparent winner.  And, ironically, almost every financial writer who stages this event always comes down on the side of index funds.  They cite important considerations like tax efficiency and costs.  But the real conversation [...]

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Investing Without Risk is Called Savings

June 14, 2010

For most us, our lives are, for lack of a better analogy, painted into a corner. While we may not feel good about our need for a car we still drive, the way our mortgage might be structured or even the promise we made to ourselves to finance our children’s college education. But we have [...]

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When Non-Investors ask about Gold

June 12, 2010

As a rule, I tend to keep it general when writing about investing. Even drilling down into people’s attitudes towards retirement is extremely difficult given the myriad of choices, plans and options each person faces. But when non-investors like my wife for instance ask about our, or better yet my position on gold, perhaps it [...]

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Tactical Asset Allocation: Mutual Funds that act like You

June 10, 2010

Mirror, mirror on the wall, can a mutual fund react like me? Not poetic but truthful; we all want a mutual fund that gets skittish when we get nervous, divests itself to cash when the market looks to be headed lower but gets back into the fray when the markets look to rebound and fails [...]

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Mutual Fund Performance: How Do You Know For Sure?

May 30, 2010

Meg Green of the Miami Herald fielded a question about mutual fund performance from a 62-year-old retiree. His question is often asked by current investors, soon-to-be retirees and current retirees and those of who write about this topic always struggle with the answer. Her answer kept to the basics but did little more than suggest [...]

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When it comes to Retirement Planning and Investing, are Women different than Men?

May 27, 2010

Last week on MomsMakingaMillion Radio, I spoke about some of the differences between women investors and their male counterparts. I suggested that when these two groups were surveyed, the focus was more about finding a way to get more women investing than it was helping women invest. In the business of investing, brokerage houses and [...]

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Imagine Your First Day as an Investor is Today

May 25, 2010

If you have been a long-time investor you know certain things about not only yourself but the markets as well. You don’t necessarily need to be a student of stocks or even understand the nuances of global economics to grasp the nature of investor behavior. You may be one of those investors who react with [...]

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