Search
-
Fighting Temptation in a Volatile Market
(Main Content/blog)
... Jan. 3, investing has been anything but a fun ride. Stocks are down about 20% this year, despite rallying over the past few days. And bonds, usually a safe haven when stocks are struggling, are down ...
-
A Bad Time to Be Over-Diversified
(Main Content/blog)
... stance. It's expected to raise interest rates and wind down the bond purchases that have been propping up the economy and the markets. As a consequence, we're moving into an environment in which it will ...
-
A Big Market Shift is Underway
(Main Content/blog)
The past several weeks has offered a good example of the effect that Federal Reserve decisions can have on the markets. With the central bank beginning to slow down the bond-buying that has helped support ...
-
Higher Interest Rates Could Hammer Stocks
(Main Content/blog)
... worth looking at the potential impact on markets. The effect of rising interest rates on bonds is fairly straightforward: Rising rates make existing bonds less valuable, since newly issued ones will pay ...
-
Time to Make a Shopping List
(Main Content/blog)
... part of the reason they can be so much more profitable than bonds over extended periods. To collect what we call stocks' risk premium, we have to be patient: Over the long term, the market's rise has always ...
-
Where to Invest Now? It's Tricky
(Main Content/blog)
... the proceeds, there's no obvious place to reinvest that money. High-quality bonds are unappealing because of their low yields--10-year Treasuries are yielding just 1.3%. And the possibility of rising ...
-
How to Invest for Inflation
(Main Content/blog)
... can make a difference. While investors are rotating to value stocks, and selectively holding on to growth stocks, one area to be extremely cautious about is long-term bonds. Inflation ...
-
Rising Inflation and Interest Rates: What to Do
(Main Content/blog)
... spurring price inflation. In March, consumer prices rose .6%, their biggest gain since 2012. Accelerating inflation, meanwhile, is pushing long-term bond rates higher. Essentially, the bond market is ...
-
Capital Gains Tax Hike a Possibility
(Main Content/blog)
... earning capital gains above $1 million per year. Long-term capital gains — the sale proceeds from stocks, bonds, mutual funds, real estate and other investments that are owned for more than a year — ...
-
What the Elections Mean for Your Investments
(Main Content/blog)
... In the year after the opposition party wins the presidency, markets tend to rise—and they rise a bit more sharply when the incumbent party remains in power. (Bonds, by the way, tend to slightly outperform ...
-
The Coming Corporate Debt Cliff
(Main Content/blog)
... if economic growth continues to slow. And as they look to issue new bonds to pay off the expiring ones – this is the $4-trillion debt cliff -- they may find fewer investors willing to lend to them. That's ...
-
Bond Yields Are Low – So Where Do You Find Income?
(Main Content/blog)
It's difficult to find good income opportunities in the bond market right now. The 10-year Treasury, which was yielding more than 3% last fall, is heading into this fall at 1.7%. That's even less than ...
-
Interest Rate Cuts: Too Little Too Late?
(Main Content/blog)
... It's gotten an extra boost from the anticipated Fed rate cuts. But the bond market, which is far larger than the stock market, tells a different story. Investors have been piling into long-maturity bonds ...
-
Should You Invest in Real Estate?
(Main Content/blog)
Real estate is often peddled as a get-rich-quick investment—and that lures some people in, and it turns some others off. The truth about real estate is that, like stocks and bonds, it can be a solid ...
-
The Investment Outlook Is Changing
(Main Content/blog)
... hefty returns were fueled by low interest rates and economic stimulus engineered by the Federal Reserve to steer us out of the Great Recession. Ultra-low interest rates and the Fed's aggressive bond buying ...
-
A Smart Investing Move to Start the Year
(Main Content/blog)
... type (stocks and bonds, for example) after they've been doing well, and buying them after they've been doing poorly. Against the current backdrop, where stocks are down 5% from a month ago, that might ...
-
Understanding What Drives the Market
(Main Content/blog)
The stock and bond markets don't move up and down over time for no reason. When they advance or decline, you can be sure that unseen catalysts are at work: Think of the wind hitting the sail of a ship. ...
-
What the Market Plunge Means for Investors
(Main Content/blog)
... rates are bad for bond investors too. That's because the issuance of new bonds at the higher rates decrease the value of the old, lower-interest bonds investors may already own. As those longer-term bonds ...
-
How to Invest in Bonds as Interest Rates Rise
(Main Content/blog)
Rising interest rates are said to be the enemy of bond investors--and since we're not in an environment of rising rates, many people are wary of buying bonds at all. However, there are good reasons to ...
-
Be Smart About Your Tax Windfall
(Main Content/blog)
... have been great for stocks, and less good for bonds. As a result, if you originally had a 50/50 balance of stocks and bonds, those faster-growing stocks might now represent, say, 70% of your portfolio, ...