I am not a huge TV junkie, but I did catch The Good Wife the other night. The plot was especially interesting to me in that an investment adviser had been murdered because of a Ponzi scheme and for defrauding hundreds of investors out of their money. Sounds familiar? Sure, we all remember the notorious Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme that rocked Wall Street and the investment world. I doubt that we will forget it anytime soon (no thanks to the... 

If you’re still looking for a place to diversify your money by putting it in a non-traditional investment, I’d like to shine the spotlight on Lending Club . It’s a fixed income investment that you won’t find in your run of the mill brokerage firm , but it’s one that has become quite popular with the online crowd (and some personal finance bloggers). I’ve covered them pretty regularly on this site as I think... 

How many of you have ever received stock option grants as part of your Total Compensation Package with your company? I’ve been getting documents (that reference my options) every Christmas from the company I work for and I would simply file away the large manila folder labeled Options into my desk drawer. It wasn’t until recently that I unearthed these documents and caught…  Read More →

Should you use a mutual fund ranking service to help you choose funds for your portfolio? That’s a debate that continues to flare in the investment world, given the many different factions that exist, supporting philosophies of one sort or another. But if you’re the type of investor that is interested in mutual fund research and somehow feels compelled to keep up with the investment industry, then you may want to check out Morningstar... 

How to invest for retirement: limit the risks you face when retiring in a bad economy. Think back to primary school. Remember the commutative property of multiplication? It’s the one that states that, when multiplying, you can swap the order of the numbers being multiplied without changing the result. For example, 5 x 3 x 8 = 120, and 8 x 5 x 3 = 120. Investment returns are multiplicative and, therefore, subject to the commutative property... 

New investor here. I wanted to use this place as a platform for boosting my investment education. It’s no secret that I’m pretty green when it comes to the world of investments, but I’m making some progress. Or at least I thought I was until I started digging into mutual funds. I thought that a mutual fund was actually another type of investment product, like a stock or a bond, but apparently I couldn’t have been farther from the truth.... 

The following is a guest post by Neal Frankle. He’s a Certified Financial Planner and blogs at Wealth Pilgrim . Neal writes about taking action steps to improve your financial situation and finding balance at the same time. People worry about money for all sorts of reasons. They worry about spending too much . They worry about earning too little. And they worry about how to invest for their retirement . Well…..after you read this, you’ll…  Read More →

Beyond stock market diversification , go for true portfolio diversification. Over the years I have frequently been asked about the idea of adding precious metals, especially gold, to a portfolio. Recent economic events, the stock market volatility and movement in gold prices have renewed the interest in this asset and I anticipate again answering the near, age-old question “What about gold?” After all, humans have been chasing gold for centuries.... 

ETFs and I have had a rocky relationship. It was love at first sight right when we first met, but then time passed and I felt some bitterness towards them — even writing right here on Wise Bread that ETFs sucked . But Wise Bread readers protested (rightly so) and that led me to rediscover them and their place in this world. You can read those comments here. It’s not them, it’s me Do they suck? If you…  Read More →

ETFs burst onto the scene a few years ago and have gotten more and more popular. They have a very specific purpose, but most investors are better off staying away from them, and I’m going to show you why. What Is an ETF? ETF stands for exchange-traded fund and it’s basically a glorified mutual fund that represents an index or collection of stocks. So what’s the difference between an ETF and a mutual fund? Well, an ETF looks... 

I was recently invited to a small business 401k checkup meeting, where we talked about how the company’s employees were participating in its plan, the overall performance, and fund allocations. When the representative suggested to hold a seminar on asset allocation, I asked whether she could separate the sessions into different age groups. She said “Oh, that’s not a problem. I think that’s a very clever idea, but no one... 

With the equity market doing its usual dance, a lot of this volatility may be making long term investors nervous. If you’re in this boat, and if you’ve been doing some reading on what to do next, then you’ve probably come across suggestions about diversifying into other asset classes in order to restore stability in your portfolio. We’ve been told time and again that diversity is the key to long-term growth for investment... 

It’s not uncommon for people to use their retirement plans and only their retirement plans through work as savings vehicles over the course of their careers. For a lot of people, that’s all they can manage and, frankly, it is really the most convenient. But as someone who works in the financial field, what I often see that occurs is that the bulk of people’s retirement money and ultimately their estate is in tax-deferred accounts (Traditional... 

Getting started as an investor in the world of peer to peer lending can be overwhelming, given the number of loans and decisions you’ll need to consider. But it’s a lot easier to get started than you think. While you’ll encounter loans with different amounts, interest rates, purposes, and projected returns, there are tools that make things a lot easier for a new investor. So if you’re thinking of …  Read More →

For experienced and first time investors alike, the plethora of investment vehicles and options can be overwhelming. It seems that on a nearly daily basis, some new innovation with unlimited promise and appeal sprouts through the already crowded investment landscape. Like many things, however, it behooves us to keep our investment styles simple. Believe it or not, a simplified investment approach not only makes our lives easier and less harrowing,...