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Interest Rate Cuts: Too Little Too Late?
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... 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 ...
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Should You Invest in Real Estate?
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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 ...
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A Smart Investing Move to Start the Year
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... 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 ...
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What the Market Plunge Means for Investors
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... 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 ...
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How to Invest in Bonds as Interest Rates Rise
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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 ...
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Be Smart About Your Tax Windfall
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... 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, ...
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Why ETFs Shouldn’t Dominate Your Portfolio
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... say, adding bonds or foreign stocks to the mix. ETFs are like corks on the water, rising and falling with the tides. In a word, they're dumb. That's why my clients' portfolios include individual stocks ...
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When That High Yield is a Trap
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<p>Yields are miserable out there: The S&P 500’s average dividend yield is just about 2%. The highest-rated 10-year corporate bonds, meanwhile, are paying just a bit more than that on average.</p><p> ...
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Opportunities But Also Risks in High-Yield Bonds
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High-yield bonds are on a roll: The iShares U.S. High-Yield Bond Index ETF (ticker: XHY) is up more than 11% for the year. But before jumping on the bandwagon, be aware that there's lots of risk in high-yield, ...
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How to Invest in a Tough Market
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It's been a tough several months for investment returns. Since June of last year, the S&P 500 index is down 12.24%, and bonds, as measured by the iShares Core U.S. Aggregate Bond ETF (AGG), are down ...
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Comparing Two Global Hot Spots
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... has $70 billion of debt, which is equivalent to just 68% of its gross domestic product. The country is struggling to pay its debt, and its bonds have been moved to junk status. Unlike Greece, Puerto ...
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Beware of the Bond Bears
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Over the past few years, investors have heard plenty of "experts" urging them to get out of bonds. But it turns out that the best move was to ignore that advice. The bond market—as measured by the Barclay's ...
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Why Good Advisors Don’t Beat the Market
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... by diversifying a portfolio. That means that, rather than swinging for the fences by owning just S&P 500 stocks, you'll own a variety of investments, such as bonds, small-cap stocks, international ...
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Oil, Patience, and Value Investing
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... in the oil and oil services sectors that can create great opportunities. Right now, it's possible to identify great companies whose stocks and bonds are "on sale" because the markets are negative on the ...
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Finding Bond Bargains in ETFs’ Wake
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... investors now use ETFs, individual bonds often swing up and down sharply in price. As a result, if you know what you're doing, there's an opportunity to earn something very rare these days: a high yield ...
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High-Yield Bonds: Attractive But Increasingly Dangerous
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Over the past few years, the high-yield fixed-income market has been one of the few places where investors could find healthy yields. But if interest rates rise as expected, the high-yield space will quickly ...
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Annuities or an Income Portfolio?
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... can generate comfortable cash flow from bonds and dividend-paying stocks while hedging against market risk, interest-rate risk and inflation. My view is that a long-term, balanced-income portfolio can ...
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Is The Market Rigged?
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... trade. The folks who should be concerned about what's described in Lewis' book are the institutional traders, including hedge funds and banks, that constantly trade huge blocks of stocks and bonds. For ...
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Time to Lock in Gains?
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One of the hardest parts of investing is selling stocks or bonds that have done well. But that's exactly what you have to do when rebalancing your portfolio—and rebalancing is one of the smartest things ...
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Resolve to Achieve Financial Success in 2014
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... Make sure the proportion of stocks and bonds you own fits within your risk tolerance level. And if you think your risk tolerance level has changed, call me and set up an appointment so I can recommend ...