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Everyone seems to be atwitter about a bull market this week.
Yesterday, the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index closed at a seven-month high, just 1 percent off the year-over-year high from April 29, 2011.
And the MSCI All-Country World Index has also climbed precipitously in recent months.
What is the MSCI All-Country World Index, you might ask.
It’s a
On Tuesday, Bloomberg.com reported that the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, or FINRA, has turned the spotlight on derivative-linked CD products.
With no substantial yields to be found in conventional CDs and savings products, savers have looked high and low for safe investments with better returns. Unfortunately, there are no easy answers these days.
Enter the structured CD,
There’s a great piece on the New York Times’ website, NYtimes.com, if you’re from under a rock, titled “Why do we still care about the Dow?” by Adam Davidson of Planet Money fame.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average is a closely watched index but is comprised of only 30 giant companies.
Here’s how the index is described
Money market funds are designed to be safe investments that maintain a $1 per share net asset value, or NAV, at all times. Unlike money market accounts offered by banks though, money market funds are not insured by the FDIC. That means it is possible to lose money in a money market fund if the
On Friday, good news came in the form of the nonfarm payrolls report, which showed a growth in private jobs of 243,000 and a decrease in the unemployment rate to 8.3 percent.
Investors rejoiced, and the Standard & Poor’s 500 index finished Friday up 1.46 percent from the previous day’s close.
Last week’s release from the Institute
In mid-January, the SEC requested comments from the public on financial literacy and investor disclosure issues.
The Dodd-Frank Act mandated that the SEC conduct this study to identify investors’ levels of financial literacy and come up with ways of improving disclosure materials pertaining to investment products, services and providers.
They also must identify the most effective ways
It’s no surprise that the tremendous volatility in the stock market has scared investors away from stocks. According to the Investment Company Institute, the trade association for domestic investment companies, in 2011 investors fled equity funds in droves — about $125 billion flowed out of stock mutual funds for the year.
For some investors, particularly those
It’s a big week for economic data, and the stock market could react to reports released through the week.
“The focus will be on Europe today and maybe tomorrow,” says John Stewart, an economist and founder of Vantage Economics.
“Then the focus will shift to the domestic economy with some of the reports coming out, and they
Ever talk to someone bemoaning the state of their 401(k) or IRA? A few casual questions reveal that they had no reason to buy the mutual funds in their portfolio outside of a hopeful glance at the historical returns.
If and when the funds falter, the losers are jettisoned willy-nilly, and the investing plan, if you
The Fed meeting this week brought a couple of changes to the economic projections from the Federal Reserve.
The projections are released four times per year and typically include forecasts for the direction of the gross domestic product, unemployment and inflation. This week’s new additions incorporate forecasts of the federal funds rate, including where participants believe
