Investing Blog

For the normal person of average means, investing in the stock market is an important thing to do. It amplifies the amount of money you’re able to accumulate over your lifetime.  But the amount of  income you’re able to save may be even more important than investing it perfectly if recent dire predictions about future stock

Investors “clueless” about fiduciary duty A study released Wednesday by the Consumer Federation of America, AARP, the North American Securities Administrators Association and various investment advisor and financial planning organizations has found that investors overwhelmingly support a universal fiduciary standard and, at the same time, are very confused about which financial professionals are now held

Last week ratings agency Moody’s announced via press release that it is reconsidering the rating system for money market funds. Also on September 7, the agency published a paper soliciting investor comments, “Moody’s proposes new money market fund rating methodology and symbols,” and explained the rationale for the proposed change. “In September 2008, 31 rated

In August the North American Securities Administration Association, or NASAA, released their annual list of investing scams and traps. In their press release, NASAA president, Denise Voigt Crawford, was quoted as saying, “Knowledge, attention to detail and a healthy sense of skepticism are a triple threat to fight investment fraud.” When it comes to investing,

There’s been an ongoing debate on the role of the fiduciary standard in the financial services industry. On the one hand, consumers have a responsibility to research their investing options. On the other hand, that’s often why consumers seek investing advice in the first place. Unfortunately for consumers, sometimes the people who benefit the most

Buy and hold is the passive investing strategy that some investment advisors love to hate — of course, if they’re getting paid for trading in your account then they definitely hate it. Nonetheless, all the antipathy towards passive investing can’t be ascribed to cynical motivations hidden deep in the hearts of the active money management

Every month, a business research organization called The Conference Board surveys 5,000 people to find out how they’re feeling about the economy. Their results are known as The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index. The results for August were released Tuesday morning and showed that consumers are feeling slightly less bleak, the Conference Board press release

On Wednesday, the SEC voted in favor of allowing shareholders proxy access. According to the SEC press release, shareholders will now be able to nominate candidates for their company’s board of directors and have those nominations included in the proxy materials. There are two hurdles to be cleared however, shares must have been held for

Bonds continue to be a hot topic in the news. Reuters reported this morning that the 10-year Treasury note is yielding 2.44 percent, a new low since January 2009. I’m writing a story about buying bonds and have run into a couple of different strategies that investment advisers are using right now when it comes

Recently there’s been some low-level agitation in the news about a Treasury bond bubble as investors continue flock to safe investments. In my last post I mentioned the Wall Street Journal article “The Great American Bond Bubble,” but not everyone agrees with the authors’, Jeremy Siegel and Jeremy Schwartz, basic premise that pessimistic investors are