8 August 2009

Should You Be In the Stock Market?

Recently, participation in the American Stock Market reached as high as 50% of the U.S. population. With so many people invested, the question remains: Should they all really be in there?

How did so many people decide the stock market was right for them? Are they rational?

We address these questions and more and help you decide if you should be in the stock market or not.

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23 April 2009

The Difficulty of Investing in 2009

The current economy is a very difficult environment. Competing and conflicting situations make a coherent strategy difficult. Several things make 2009 a particularly difficult nut to crack:

• Asset Class Issues
• Government Interference
• Conflicting Short and Long Term Issues

How can an investor overcome these issues?

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4 April 2009

5 ETFs That Can Help Balance Your Portfolio

While I generally advocate against investing in individual stocks for amateur investors, I make some exceptions for ETFs. Exchange Traded Funds are funds that trade on the stock market like a regular stock, but represent managed funds like mutual funds.
These ETFs give you an opportunity to hedge your stock market positions and provide some balance to your portfolio fairly easily. While I would still recommend a lot of research before buying any of these, each of these ETFs gives you some ability to round out your positions.

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20 February 2009

Investing Step 9: Allocation

After all your tax-deferred accounts are being used to their maximum potential, it is time to fund any other accounts. Once that is done, you need to start deciding how to allocate your funds. This is the problem that many people did not properly address before the real-estate bubble burst and is the most important step to maximizing your returns.

The key components in making these decisions are time horizon and risk aversion.

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