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The Future of Retail Banking
USA Today ran a story in March on the changing nature of retail banking in America. This sounds kind of boring, perhaps, but it has broad implications both for bank clients and, potentially, for...
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Am I Better Off Investing or Paying Down Debt?
This is the fourth installment in our series on how individual investors can assess their financial health. A common dilemma in personal finance is whether to use funds to pay down debt faster or to...
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Is My Portfolio at the Right Risk Level?
This is the fifth installment in our series on how individual investors can assess their financial health. At every stage of investing, you should periodically ask yourself how much risk you can...
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How Much am I Paying in Investment Expenses?
This is the seventh installment in our series on how individual investors can assess their financial health. In my experience, I’ve found that many people have no idea how much they’re paying for the...
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Are My Investment Decisions Tax Efficient?
This is the eighth installment in our series on how individual investors can assess their financial health With investment gains, as with other types of income, it’s not how much you make that...
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6 Reasons Why You Don’t Want to Invest Like a Professional Trader
As everyone with a computer knows, the web is shoulder-deep in brokerages, services, and publications that promise to help you invest just like the pros. That’s no surprise. It’s a logical step in the...
View ArticleNew Trends in the Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF) Marketplace
Many investors are familiar with exchange-traded funds (ETF) by now. ETFs provide broad market exposure through index-tracking investments, and they trade on exchanges like stocks do. They tend to be...
View ArticleWhen Oil Prices Influence Market Sectors, Diversification Can Save Your...
Oil prices have been making headlines for months now, and it’s no wonder. While it’s easy to see the benefits of lower oil prices on consumers, not every market participant has been enjoying the...
View ArticleAre Mutual Fund Fees Jeopardizing Your Retirement Dreams? Know Your Expense...
Investing for retirement is no game. Every dollar counts, because over time, every dollar you save—or fail to save—creates a ripple effect that can significantly impact your quality of life in...
View Article3 Insights into the Millennial Investor
Generation Y—also known as the Millennial Generation—refers to the population segment born between the early 1980s and late 1990s. Like most generational cadres, this demographic tends to have a...
View ArticleHow ETFs Can Benefit a Diversified Investment Portfolio
Over the past decade, the exchange-traded fund (ETF) has made its way into an increasing number of investors’ portfolios, and it’s not hard to see why. An ETF is a basket of securities that trades on...
View ArticleThe Volatility of Volatility: What You Need to Know About the VIX
Volatility is often perceived by investors as a negative. No one likes to think about the likelihood that their stock prices will move in the wrong direction. And a high level of volatility can act as...
View ArticleIncome Investors Are Feeling the Squeeze
Investors have been finding it increasingly difficult to generate income in their investment portfolios. This is a problem that impacts many people who rely on portfolio income to live on or to...
View ArticleETF Expense Ratios: Their Impact on Long-Term Performance
Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are commonly recognized as a low-cost way to achieve a diversified portfolio. That makes sense: because ETFs are passively managed, they don’t incur the research and...
View ArticleLong-Term Investing: Avoiding the Urge to Trade
It’s easy to talk about ignoring short-term market events and to recommend focusing your attention on the market’s long history of positive returns. It’s another thing entirely to sit through the daily...
View ArticleBetter Choices for Investors Help Put the Squeeze on Mutual Fund Fees
With all the talk about how fees can negatively impact investment returns, particularly over the long run, it’s nice to see the new research showing that mutual fund fees have started to come down....
View ArticleGrowth vs. Value: A Tale of Two Investment Strategies
Building an investment portfolio for the long term means finding a strategy that will work in both the best of times and the worst of times. And with so many investment styles to choose from, it pays...
View ArticleAre Equal-Weight ETFs Here to Stay?
Given the growing number and popularity of ETFs—and given their reputation as a low-cost tool for diversification—it’s important to understand how these investments track the indexes they represent....
View Article5 Ways to Improve Your Cash Flow and Invest More
For some people, deciding how to invest is the hard part. But for others, finding extra money to put toward investments is even harder. You know investing is important, and you know the more...
View ArticleSmart Financial Moves for Your 30s to Help You Reach Your Financial Goals
People in their 30s often find themselves facing a number of transitions: marriage, children, career advancement, and home buying, to name a few. It’s a stage of life that’s full of challenges, but it...
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