All Investing Articles

In today's volatile markets, many people are fleeing to safe investments while waiting out the storm. But this strategy could turn sour if the cost of living increases. Inflation should be a top concern for investors, especially among people facing retirement, says Michael Kresh, a Certified Financial Planner and author of "You Can Afford to Retire." "When you are trying to Read more...

Aside from the standard meat-and-potatoes equity and fixed-income investments that should make up the portfolios of most people, several alternative asset classes are available to individual investors. Alternative assets are a good diversification tool because they're generally not correlated to the stock market. This means when the market goes down, alternative assets may go up or stay the Read more...

America's retirement picture looks anything but rosy. Bankrate's recent survey reveals that 70 percent of Americans worry about saving enough money for retirement. And after getting burned in the recent bear market, only half (49 percent) believe stocks and stock funds offer the best chance for good long-term returns. Even American attitudes about homeownership are mixed. A whopping 92 Read more...

While technology hasn't exactly leveled the playing field between regular-Joe investors and ultra-high net worth and institutional investors, it has at least shown all the little people where the playing field is. Just look online and you'll see that we may all be in the same ballpark, but we're playing different games entirely. However, individual investors have at their disposal many of Read more...

Stock market performance in the most recent bear market was largely a train wreck that left many older investors wondering what to do. Should they purge their investment portfolios of stocks altogether or risk running out of money? Between October 2007 and March 2009, the Standard & Poor's 500 lost 55 percent of its value. An investor with a $1 million exposure to an S&P 500 fund would Read more...

It turns out that rumors of the death of buy-and-hold investing strategies have been greatly exaggerated. At least that's what Walt Woerheide believes when it comes to long-term strategies for individual investors who lack a crystal ball or other prognostication skills. The professor of investments at American College and co-author of the financial professionals' textbook "Fundamentals of Read more...

The term "penny stock" is one that can either strike fear and skepticism into the hearts of investors, or alternatively, suggest the possibility of great opportunity to make many times an initial investment in a relatively short period of time in a little-known company. "Penny stocks are a fascinating, shadowy underground world, including micro-sized, but legitimate, businesses Read more...

Everyone knows the secret to investment success is to buy low and sell high. The problem is most of us lack clairvoyance. We asked experts to weigh in on some of the most common mistakes investors make, and while it's easy to see that chasing hot stocks (the most frequently cited mistake) would be an exercise in futility, they reported other less obvious pitfalls to watch out for. There Read more...

Many people go about investing in sporadic fashion, without considering their goals, time horizon or risk tolerance. They put together a thousand bucks, call a broker and ask for a stock recommendation. Or they sign up for 401(k) plans -- a good thing -- but plan to tap them early without realizing they'll have to pay stiff penalties plus taxes to do so. Still others dutifully open accounts and Read more...

Green shoots may be sprouting here and there in some segments of the economy, but for savers the yard still looks quite weedy. Short-term deposit rates are discouraging; you have to go pretty far out on the yield curve to find anything that can be considered a halfway decent return. High-yield six-month CDs, as surveyed by Bankrate.com, are ranging from about 1.15 percent to 2 percent. Compare Read more...

America's most predominant workplace retirement plan enables you to save on a tax-favorable basis. It's an opportunity of which everyone should take advantage. A 401(k) is an employer-sponsored retirement plan that's funded by employee contributions. These contributions are deducted directly from your paycheck. Many companies match contributions up to a certain percentage of salary. Most Read more...

Courting lady luck is a risky proposition in the business of investing. Picking stocks and timing the market is hard, but developing a solid investment strategy is easy when you approach it as a science. "Building a portfolio is not an art, it's engineering," says Kirk Kinder, a Certified Financial Planner, or CFP, and owner of Picket Fence Financial in Bel Air, Md. Once you know Read more...

Earlier this year, the stock market fell to a 12-year low, losing 54 percent of its peak value and taking a vast chunk of ordinary Americans' wealth with it. In the wake of such big losses, many investors are looking for someone to hold accountable. That has placed financial advisers under the microscope. "From what I've seen from industry surveys and things like that, a very high Read more...

There were no surprises in the stress test results as data had been leaked for several days ahead of the formal announcement. The government says that 10 of the 19 bank holding companies subjected to the stress tests need to add, in total, approximately $75 billion in capital to withstand a worst-case scenario. To sum up, the nation's 19 largest bank holding companies were tested under a Read more...

The recent news about stock dividends seems grim. In 2008, a record 62 companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 index cut their dividends, amounting to nearly $41 billion in lost payouts. Another $30 billion of S&P 500 dividend reductions occurred in just the first two months of 2009, more than the preceding quarter's record-breaking total, the S&P says. With more industry Read more...

In the wake of the financial crisis, almost all investors are looking for safety. As a result, financial firms are peddling a number of investments that promise protection of your principal, regular monthly payouts or guaranteed minimum returns. But beware, many of these products aren't all they're cracked up to be. Some don't meet their goals, and many charge high fees. "They may Read more...

Buy and hold. The traditional advice for stock investing now applies to home buying. With a long-term horizon, you can ride out cycles where prices are depressed. Just as stock investors console themselves in knowing that today's troubled market doesn't really matter if they don't sell now, homebuyers who put down roots won't worry about selling at a loss should real estate prices slide Read more...

Fixed-income investors who insist on a government-backed guarantee, but want a better yield than Treasuries, may find certain bank bonds tempting. The caveat, as always, is whether the price for security is too steep. Among the alphabet soup of programs announced by the federal government as it tries to spur lending and investment is the Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program, or TLGP. One Read more...

Money market mutual fund yields are dropping hard, and that's causing a number of firms to waive some fees and close funds to new investors. Breaking the buck is always the big headline -- that's when a money fund's net asset value falls below $1 per share -- but that's not the real danger at this point. The immediate threat is a negative yield. When the income that the fund receives from Read more...

If what doesn't kill you really does make you stronger, then retirement investors will rule the roost in 2009. While the financial world crashed and burned in 2008, there was hardly a moment to pause and ask, "OK, but what can we learn from this?" Now as consumers take a breather, pop the corks and usher in 2009, it's a great time to reflect on how those costs came with a few lessons. Read more...