Posts tagged as:

interest rates

Personalizing Personal Finance: Servicing Debt

August 18, 2010

The final piece in this six part series concerns the negative effect of debt on any personal finance plan: the servicing of the debt you may already have.  While taxes and investments, protection, financial goals, and accumulation goals and the ability to eventually  have anything worth leaving to your heirs are all important consideration when trying to build [...]

Read the full article →

Municipal Bonds Have Risk

May 19, 2010

We want to believe it simply isn’t so. Municipal bonds or munis, those hometown or home state, often tax exempt debt instruments which are favored among the retired, the soon-to-be retired or those looking for a conservative but well-paid return may be facing a little headwind. But truth be told, you should have noticed. When [...]

Read the full article →

An Uncertain Strategy for the Federal Reserve

April 24, 2010

The Federal Reserve is holding most of the cards it has in its hand close to its vest.  And with good reason.  With so much at stake, it would be unwise to spook any recovery with talk of changing its direction on interest rates. First, the truisms.  There is dissent among Federal Reserve Board governors [...]

Read the full article →

Interest Rates are Headed Up; Headed Down; Both?

April 12, 2010

Talk about your conflicts. Interest rates, the determining factor for consumers and businesses known also as the cost of borrowing money, are about to go up. Or perhaps they will go down. Maybe these rates will stabilize and nothing much of anything will happen in the short-term (which is the greatest worry) or the long-term [...]

Read the full article →

Rising Rates Make Bond Fund Managers Worry

February 21, 2010

Once again, the investor is at risk. Only now, the risk is coming from the very advice, whether implied or simply offered that conservative investments are the best way to prevent catastrophic losses in your retirement accounts. Its no secret that many folks, reeling from the recent dip in their 401(k) plan balances shifted any [...]

Read the full article →