Best wishes to all my readers this holiday season! I have so much to be grateful for, starting with my family and friends, and my family has been blessed to live in this great and prosperous United States. We have an economic system that provides everyone the opportunity to own a piece of every (public) company on the planet. Through hard work, frugality, and time, our world bestows great gifts … [Read more...]
Knowledge is Essential to Investment Success
Success with investing means not only saving on investment costs and selecting the right allocation, but also having the confidence from knowledge. One of my biggest concerns about the trend towards robo-investing is that, at its core, the presumption is savers do not want or need to be bothered with knowledge or in-depth understanding about their investments. One online session does it all! … [Read more...]
How to Tune Out the Noise of Financial Markets
The fastest way to investment failure is listening to the siren song of the financial markets to "do something." Here are four strategies to help you tune out the noise and stick to your plan. Interest rates might rise. ISIS may strike again. US stocks are overvalued. The US dollar is too strong. Economic growth is too slow...this constant barrage of news is designed to make you act - to do … [Read more...]
Four Reasons to Own REITs
REITs (and REIT index funds in particular) are a good diversifier of performance within an index portfolio. Here are four reasons why adding a "separate slice" to REITs might be a good idea. Real estate investment trusts (REITs) are companies that own and normally operate real estate properties that generate income from leases and financing of property purchases. If you already own a U.S. … [Read more...]
Vanguard Changes Index Benchmarks
Vanguard announced in June 2015 it was planning changes to its benchmarks for foreign index stock market funds. Those changes start now and it is good news for investors. The News Vanguard announced on November 1, 2015 that its Emerging Markets Fund (VEMAX/VEIEX/VWO) will now start to transition to a new tracking index over a 12-month period. The change will be to an index that covers a larger … [Read more...]
Five Essentials for Financial Wealth
Creating financial wealth requires understanding five essentials; investing concepts that really work if you apply them to all your investment decisions. It would be nice if we could all make investments like a machine, and "set it and forget it," but because we are human, it is near impossible to do. We are emotional creatures, not Mr. Spock. Even so, knowledge is power. Consider these five … [Read more...]