Bond Investing
How to Choose an Investment Advisor
It is one thing to invest your first $10,000 and another to successfully invest and manage more substantial amounts of money. First of all, when you first start out investing it is often more important to get you financial house in order than pick the right stocks! But, now what do you do with an inheritance of a quarter of a million or more. Or what if you have sold a successful business for tens of millions of dollars? At this point you are thinking that you need some sound advice about how to invest your money. This brings us […]
Will You Lose Money When the Interest Rate Goes Up?
The investor community is fretting over interest rates. Inflation is creeping up and the US Federal Reserve is likely to keep raising rates. When rates creep up, the stock market heads down. And if you hold long term bonds they will continue to pay the current low rate even as new bonds pay more. That means you will either sell them at a loss or hold them with their low yield until maturity. Depending on the positioning of your investment portfolio, will you lose money when interest rates to up?
Short versus Long Term Bonds
We recently wrote about tax free municipal […]
How to Protect Your Retirement Savings before the US Economy Implodes Again
Far too many investors were essentially wiped out in the 2008 economic collapse. Those who got back into the stock market and invested well have ridden a historic bull market to impressive gains. The real estate market has also largely recovered and benefitted those who bought when prices were at a rock bottom. But, no bull market lasts forever. We saw a little bit of that prophecy come true in the last couple of weeks as stocks corrected impressively. In this article we are not so much concerned with how far the market will rise again or how quickly it […]
Are Tax Free Municipal Bonds a Good Idea?
For years a tried and true investment was a tax free municipal bond. If you were in a high tax bracket you could write off your federal taxes and sometimes even your state and local taxes on the interest gained. With a carefully chosen bond you could get a better return than with a US Treasury. And in an era when the top tax rate was 89% it made perfect sense to go the tax free municipal bond route. Now there is talk of fixing America’s ailing infrastructure using seed money from the federal government and bonds issued by state […]
Should You Be Concerned about the Inverted Yield Curve?
As the bull market has ranged higher and higher, the bears have repeated predicted its demise. And they have been wrong again and again. Nevertheless, all bull markets do finally end or at least experience a substantial correction. What are the signs you should look for as tip offs that the economy and stocks are about the experience a setback? In an article about slowing cash flow in the corporate world Bloomberg notes that investors should be concerned about the inverted yield curve.
Concerns over a flattening U.S. Treasury yield curve – a sign to some of a coming economic slowdown […]
What Should You Invest in After Hurricanes Harvey and Irma?
As hurricane Irma bears down on the Caribbean with Florida in its sights are there stocks you should be selling and are there stocks you should buy? The Washington Post writes that Korea and back to back major hurricanes have driven the market down. As stocks skid over worries what should you invest in after hurricanes Harvey and Irma?
Major stock indices closed down more than 1 percent Tuesday as traders worldwide reacted to a rapid escalation of the North Korean nuclear crisis, a second powerful hurricane barreling toward U.S. shores in as many weeks and a looming political fight over […]
What Do You Do When Market Winners Start to Lose?
The stock market rally this year has been largely driven by the high tech darlings known as the FANG (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google). The first take of many investors after Trump’s election was that industrial, construction related and bank stocks would benefit from his proposed economic stimulus measures. However, all of that has been slow to come if not absent as scandal and inefficiency drag the White House into the muck. Now the realization seems to have hit the market that the high tech darlings may be a little too highly priced and they have all dipped together. […]
How to Make Money and Not Lose Your Savings
Anyone who has a little extra cash should be routinely putting something away for a rainy day, college for the kids, retirement or simply a better life. Traditional advice is that you can accept more risk and invest entirely in stocks when you are young and you should convert to less risk as in buying bonds as you age. But what are people really doing to make money and not lose their savings? CNBC writes about the way to invest in your 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s.
Needs change over time, and the investment mix that worked in your 20s […]
Pros and Cons of Foreign Investment in Africa
As populations grow in developing nations, infrastructure investment follows. This is especially true in parts of Africa. We wrote about the risks of foreign investment last week. What are the pros and cons of foreign investment in Africa? Wbug.com writes that booming populations are attracting lots of foreign investment.
Chinese President Xi Jinping is in the United States this week for his first face-to-face meeting with President Trump.
One thing that could come up during those meetings is foreign investment in Africa. The continent’s population is expected to double to 2.4 billion by 2050. Both China and the U.S. are investing heavily […]