Stocks shuffled higher during the first four days of the week, with relatively muted response to the bevy of high-profile companies releasing earnings. But on Friday, that muted response turned into a loud cry, as stocks sold off hard on a combination of a weaker-than-anticipated GDP number, poor earnings from Ford (F), and riots in […]

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“We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same.” –Carlos Castaneda These profound words by the anthropologist/author come in handy when deciding how we should react to a particular situation or event. When it comes to investing, you can be both miserable and strong all in the

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You may have noticed price hikes in the grocery aisles lately for a number of the goods that you buy regularly, particularly sugar, meat and coffee. The rise in food prices has been driven by a combination of factors that include increased demand from a rapidly growing middle class in India and China, market speculation

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During the past several weeks, we’ve taken you through Parts I, II and III of our four-part series on getting your 2011 financial house in order. Let’s recap these first three sections before we hit the fourth and final segment. Part I was all about conducting an inventory of your assets and all of your

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Dominating the political and market headlines today was the post-analysis of President Obama’s State of the Union address. The speech was long, and it did contain a lot of very broad strokes. But I must say that I thought the president’s tone and verbiage toward business, and toward trying to rein in deficits, was a

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This week we saw the market begin the process of wringing out the bullishness that’s been so pervasive over the past several months. The major indices finished the week mixed, with the Dow adding 0.72%. Big jumps in IBM and GE following each company’s respective earnings beats were the chief reason for the Dow finishing […]

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“Out of clutter, find simplicity.” –Albert Einstein When you’re dealing with the equity markets, it’s easy to get bogged down in the constant flood of disparate data. But one thing to keep in mind is that out of all of this clutter, your goal as an investor should be to find simplicity. You can do

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The universe of ETFs has been growing rapidly since their introduction to the investing world in 1993. At last count, the total is 911 funds — 827 ETFs and 84 exchange-traded notes (ETNs) — that cover virtually every sector imaginable. From real estate, commodities and technology to small-cap, growth and value funds, there’s an ETF

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I recently read an article in the Los Angeles Times that basically argued that most investors don’t understand ETFs. The article cited a survey by Chicago market research firm Mintel that showed more than 60% of investors don’t buy ETFs because they “don’t know what they are.” Now, as a big advocate of using ETFs,

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During the past two weeks, we’ve taken you through Part I and Part II of our four-part series on getting your 2011 financial house in order. Part I was all about conducting an inventory of your assets and all of your accounts — taxable accounts, retirement accounts, insurance and annuities, etc. Part II was about

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