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Why Hire an Independent Advisor To Further Your Financial Interests?
From books to blogs, from media mavens to marketeers, from pundits to pros … there’s never a lack of talking heads telling you how to make the most of your money. Why hire an independent advisor to
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Playing the Prediction Game – Hindsight Is 20/20. Foresight Isn’t.
Downplay the prediction game! Rather than basing investment decisions on predictions of which way debt or equity markets are headed, a wiser strategy may be to hold a range of investments that focus on
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Why “Safe Harbors” Can Be Risky Business And How You Can Mitigate
Whenever investors are spooked by turbulent times, dollars tend to flow out of the stock market, and into “safe harbors” investments such as bonds, bond funds, CDs, money markets, or even cash. As
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What Happens When You Fail at Market Timing
The impact of missing just a few of the market’s best days can be profound. There’s no proven way to time the market—targeting the best days or moving to the sidelines to avoid the worst. History
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Lessons for Long-Term Investors – Tale of Two Decades
The first two decades of the 21st century have reinforced important lessons for long-term investors. Holding a broadly diversified portfolio can help smooth out the swings. Having a sound strategy built
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What is the Purpose of Indexes and Index Funds? (Part IV)
Compared to actively managed funds that seek to “beat” the market by engaging in now-outdated speculative strategies, a more solid solution for sensibly capturing available market returns is offered
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Financial Planning for Women: The Best Tips for Success
You might be suprised to learn that when it comes to the big earners — those earning more than $1 million a year — women now take the cake over men. Also, the millionaire club is getting a
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Market Index Mechanics – Interesting Idiosyncrasies (Part III)
Market indexes and market index mechanics, you read about them all the time. In Part III of this series, we take a closer look at market index mechanics to gain a better understanding of why they do,
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Index Points and What they Mean (Part II)
Checking an index point at any given time is like dipping your toe in the water to see how the ocean is doing. You may have good reasons to do that toe-check, but as with any approximation, be careful
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A Financial Index Overview: Part I – Indexes Defined
When a popular financial index like the Dow is on a tear, up or down, what does it really mean to you and your investments?
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A simple equation that effects your investments.
When fundamental facts grow harder to discern, investments grow more volatile, and that’s what’s been happening lately, especially with the widespread misperception of the yield curve inversion.
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How to React to Recent Market Volatility
Market volatility can be nerve-racking for investors. Reacting emotionally and changing long-term investment strategies in response to short-term declines could prove more harmful than helpful.
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3 Key Steps to Protect Your Assets (While You’re Alive)
Taking action to protect your assets and what’s yours while you’re still alive and in sane mind makes such good sense. There are many ways in which you might be unavailable to make critical
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What is the Total Cost of Ownership?
A question worth finding answers to is ‘what is the total cost of ownership?’ The costs you expect to pay are likely to be an important factor in making any investment decision, including major
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Timing Markets Isn’t Everything
The lure of getting in at the right time or avoiding the next downturn may tempt even disciplined, long-term investors. The reality of successfully timing markets, however, isn’t as straightforward as
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Value Premium Investing – How Viable Is It Today?
It’s no secret that in U.S. markets, value stocks have been underperforming relative to growth stocks for around a decade. Has the Value Premium Lost its Mojo? Are the underwhelming returns a temporary,
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The Randomness of Global Equity Returns
Investment opportunities for over 15,000 publicly traded companies exist all around the globe. Fluctuations in performance from year to year add to the complexity of investing globally, and provide little
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Good Advice For Your Personal Financial Planning
In today’s world of one-page financial plans, bargain-basement fund pricing and automated investing tools, you don’t just need advice. You need good advice.
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What Are Liquid Investments?
What are Liquid Investments? When a holding is liquid, it simply means you can sell it anytime the market in which it trades is open for business, without losing your proverbial shirt in the exchange.
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The Uncommon Average
The US stock market has delivered an average annual return of around 10% since 1926. But short-term results may vary, and in any given period stock returns can be positive, negative, or flat. When setting
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6 Tax Planning Strategies to Optimize Your Retirement Wealth
You’ll benefit from the tax planning strategies in this post, whether you are currently retired or are still counting down the years, months, or days until retirement. Being deliberate about your
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Earning The Equity Risk Premium
A rubric of modern portfolio theory taught at colleges and universities holds that investors get paid extra return for taking risk. The risk premium is the amount you get paid for owning a risky asset.
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Five Financial Adages for Thriving in Volatile Markets
Sometimes the best, most rigorously developed financial advice is so obvious, it’s become cliché. And yet, investors often end up abandoning this same advice when volatile markets are on the rise. Why
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Understanding How Investments are Taxed Differently
Taxes in retirement can have serious impacts and different investments are taxed differently. Retirees should be aware their taxable income could have an impact on more than their investment portfolio...
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Understanding How Fee Only Advisors Work [Infographic]
The vast majority of employees of banks, brokerage firms, and insurance companies charge a management fee part of the time and are commissioned salespeople at other times. These brokers call themselves
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Alternative Reality
Diversification has been called the only free lunch in investing. This idea is based on research showing that diversification, through a combination of assets like stocks and bonds, could reduce volatility
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10 Steps to Easing Financial Anxiety During Major Life Changes
Life happens and, sometimes, it can be incredibly worrisome from a financial standpoint. You’ve struggled through a divorce. Perhaps you’ve faced a life-threatening illness. And, you look at your bank
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The Tao of Wealth Management
The path to success in many areas of life is paved with continual hard work, intense activity, and a day-to-day focus on results. However, for many investors who adopt this approach to managing their wealth,
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What You Pay, What You Get: Connecting Price and Expected Returns
It has been more than 50 years since the idea of stock prices containing all relevant information was put forth. Information might come in the form of data from a company’s financial statements, news
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The Impact of Inflation
This erosion of the real purchasing power of wealth is called inflation. Inflation is an important element of investing. In many cases, the reason for saving today is to support future spending. Therefore,
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