The presidential primaries are in full force with Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton looking like they will receive their respective party’s nominations. I’m going to go out on a limb and say, nothing is decided yet, at the beginning of March. But, don’t hold me to it, as it’s still early, and with Mitt Romney betting against Trump, anything is possible.
Is There a Dark Cloud Hanging Above a Passive Index Fund Investing Approach? Most, although not all, of the robo-advisors practice some form of a passive index fund investing approach. This type of investing is based upon widely accepted and well researched investment practice that demonstrates that it’s extremely difficult for actively managed funds to beat the performance of the major market indexes such as the S&P 500 and others.
2016 Investment Markets Don’t Look Good “The blue chips fell 276.09 points, or 1.6%, to 17148.94. The decline marked the worst first day of trading since 2008, and follows the first yearly fall for the Dow since 2008.” WSJ.com Okay, it’s 2 business days into 2016 and so far, the markets don’t look great. You’re thinking, “my investments s*ck”. On January 4th, the DOW dropped 1.6%, the S&P fell 1.5%, and the NASDAQ went down 2.1%. The next day, Tuesday, January 5th, 2016 the markets calmed dow…
Find out Why You Should Invest in Index Funds Guest author, James Pollard I’ll cut straight to the chase; you should strongly consider investing index funds. Let me explain. I’ll start off with two investing truths which underscore why you should invest in index funds. First, stocks have historically given investors the highest return when compared to bonds, money market funds, etc. Second, diversification reduces the risk and volatility of your portfolio. If you tend to have a weak stomach f…
Today, in Part 2-International Stock Investing Guidelines; How Much of My portfolio Should I Invest Internationally?, you’ll get direction in determining how much of your portfolio to allocate to international investments. The last section will show you how to invest in the entire world with one fund.
“What percentage of my stock investments, if any, should I allocate towards international stocks and emerging markets (the latter of which seems to have more volatility)?” asked Brian, of Luke 1428.com Brian asks an important investing question. There’s lots of discussion about the importance of diversification. All but the newest investors know about diversifying within your own country. And most of us understand that it’s important to diversify internationally. But how should you divide up …
In investing, large gains and large losses go with the territory. Rarely do you know which investments will outperform and which ones will underperform. So, don’t judge your investing performance too frequently, either the good or the bad performers.
I just returned from Fincon 2015, a peer conference for the financial media community. Now, I’m totally inspired with too much to do on my plate. In conjunction with the exciting conference, I also co-launched Young and Oldish Money Podcast with my partner, Bobby Lee of 2 Minute Finance.com. If any of you have launched a new endeavor, then you understand; there’s the first part of content creation, in this case, recording many episodes of the podcast for publication. Next, and equally as chal…
Do Strong Fundamentals Predict Stock Market Returns? With the recent stock market crash, you may be wondering how to predict stock market returns. Do you think it’s possible to predict stock market returns? Stocks can remain overvalued for a long time before a crash. For example, back in 1996 former Federal Reserve chairman, Alan Greenspan wrote about irrational exuberance driving stock prices up to unsustainable levels. He claimed the markets were overvalued and implied they could not keep u…
Discover the answer to the question, “Do I Need Bonds in my Portfolio?” Learn about bond investing from an MBA professor. The recent stock market crash proves this point. Maximize return and minimize risk.