Investing Blog

You may have heard the phrase, “so goes January, so goes the year.” The phrase comes from the January barometer and is believed by some to be a predictor of the direction of the stock market for the coming year. Though it has its detractors, the son of the creator, Jeffrey Hirsch, editor of the

Not surprisingly, this election year will shape up to be an ideological battle royal between proponents of free-market capitalism and those that would impose some constraints on unfettered capitalism in the form of regulation. Back in 2010, the Dodd-Frank Act was passed in order to address some of the abuses by financial institutions that led

I recently appeared on the Fox Business Network to talk about my 2012 interest rate outlook. Here’s an edited transcript of my comments: Mortgages I think there’s a possibility that mortgage rates could move considerably lower early this year. It will be brief, but here’s the scenario under which I see that unfolding: If fears

Oh December, month of lists detailing the best and worst of the outgoing year and forecasts telling us what to expect from the coming year. Today’s forecast for 2012 comes from the CFA Institute, the world’s largest association of investment professionals and granter of the prestigious Chartered Financial Analyst designation. In their Global Market Sentiment

Inflation won’t be going away anytime soon, but at today’s interest rates, your purchasing power may be slipping. Inflation can, of course, be a significant drain on the amount you can buy in the future with today’s dollars. To fight that, investors often use government bonds called Treasury Inflation Protected Securities, or TIPS. The inflation

The economic report known as the Beige Book came out today. The report comes out eight times per year and includes data from each of the 12 Federal Reserve Banks and businesses in their corresponding regions. Only one region, St. Louis, reported a decline in economic activity. For the 11 other districts it increased at

This morning Fidelity Investments released the results of a new survey that shows that young investors are skewing more conservative. The “Higher Education Generational Survey” looked at the investing behavior of retirement plan participants in higher education across three generations: Y, X and Boomer. The survey found that Generation Y investors use similar asset allocation

The long holiday weekend may be a good time to do some financial housekeeping, and that might include rebalancing your investment portfolio if it’s in a tax-advantaged account such as a 401(k) or IRA. Rebalancing means resetting your investments to match your original asset allocation plan. For instance, imagine a hypothetical scenario in which someone

On Tuesday, Jefferson County, Alabama filed for bankruptcy, earning the dubious distinction of being the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history. The county was in debt to bondholders for more than $3 billion for a sewer system project, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday in the story, “Biggest muni bankruptcy ever puts investors on high alert.”

By now the entire story of MF Global has unfolded, revealing a series of bad decisions and errors in judgment. MF Global made highly-leveraged bets on short-term sovereign debt from cash-strapped European nations such as Spain and Italy. Those investments were ultimately the firm’s undoing, but defaults on the investments weren’t what brought them down