Most investors learn early on that stocks are the best way to grow their wealth. It’s a lesson that has become accepted throughout the investment community and isn’t questioned at all. So many investors have made so much money through their 401(k) plans, IRAs, and brokerage accounts that no one ever thinks about whether there are other, better investment...
With the dotcom bubble having burst in spectacular fashion in 2000, the housing bubble having resulted in the financial crisis in 2008, and now the everything bubble on the verge of bursting, it’s no wonder that many investors have been shy over the years about investing in stock markets. While they can make major gains on the upside, the...
Over a decade removed from the financial crisis, you would think that banks and financial institutions had learned their lesson from the crisis. With the banking system supposedly on the verge of collapse in 2008, only an enormous government bailout and massive injections of liquidity from the Federal Reserve System staved off a complete collapse. But have banks learned...
If you thought that quantitative easing was a thing of the past, a response to the financial crisis that was dead and buried, think again. Not only is it not a relic, it is a policy response that has now become the Fed’s number one policy tool. Every time something potentially negative affects the economy, the Fed will now...
To younger workers the idea of a pension hearkens back to days gone by, when employees spent their entire career with a single company from first hire to retirement. In the modern workplace, with workers ready to jump from company to company in search of better pay or benefits, the idea of a pension seems almost antiquated. And with...
The secret to a comfortable retirement is to have more money on hand in retirement than you end up spending. But that’s not always easy to do, and every retiree’s greatest fear is running out of money in retirement. That means that to really be secure in retirement you’ll have to build up as large a nest egg as...
There’s a lot of retirement advice out there that is just plain dated. Much of it is focused on those who are already in their 40s and 50s and have sizable nest eggs already. And even more of it is written from the perspective of those who came of age during the stock market heyday of the ‘80s and...
The past decade has seen interest rates at historically low levels for the longest period of time ever. The effect that has had on the economy has been enormous, with governments, corporations, and households all taking on massive amounts of debt in order to take advantage of low borrowing costs. But despite interest rates being so low, economic performance...
One of the most perplexing things about stock markets today is that, while most people understand that they’re bound for a correction some point soon, they continue to keep climbing near their all-time highest levels. That’s despite all the pessimism surrounding the trade war with China, the worsening business climate, and an overall gut feeling in millions of investors...
It’s no secret that the United States government is in terrible financial shape. The national debt stands right now at $22.5 trillion, and most forecasts for future debt growth expect federal deficits to continue adding about $1 trillion per year to that total. But there’s a pretty ominous tipping point that’s coming up really soon that could cause that...