Why your 10% return is bad and why your -5% return is great If you finish a game of bowling, you can see your score. After you take the SAT, you see how you did. If you invest, you can see what return you got. Simple. But it’s not quite that simple. If I told…
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Do you know what would be really cool? If we had just one kind of retirement account with simple rules for putting money in and taking it out. Keep dreaming! We don’t. We have so many different kinds of retirement accounts – all with crazy ridiculous rules, half of which you wouldn’t even believe if…
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You’ve learned about all kinds of fees and expenses you may pay as an investor, but there’s still one more. And this is a popular one. These are Assets Under Management fees (also called “AUM”). Again, this last type of fee is also pretty common. Financial planners and investment advisors may help you determine your…
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Well, isn’t this your lucky day! We get to talk about how to triple your money in less than a month with a no-risk secret strategy. What’s that? It doesn’t exist? So, now what? Well, it looks like I won’t be sharing that secret, but I have something just as exciting. I’m going to talk…
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Let’s play “complete the word.” We know it’s a bad word. We know it starts with “f.” We know it has four letters. We know this course is rated PG-13. So that must mean the word is: FEES. Yup, fees. Those nasty buggers that strip away your hard-earned money. The bad news is they are…
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How will you possibly handle the ups in the market? This is kind of a trick question. Those stressful days, weeks, and months where you look at your accounts and they just keep going up, and all you can think of is all the money you are making? How will you handle this? Therapy? Of…
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You are now an expert on risk tolerance! Congratulations. But who cares? As the familiar saying goes, “You can’t pay your rent with risk tolerance.” Well, now, maybe you can. Let’s look at an example of two people: Clueless Karen and Insightful Irene. Clueless Karen has never heard of risk tolerance and is definitely not…
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Investing. You buy some stocks and mutual funds and watch your money grow like this over time. This is not what happens though. This is more like what happens. What does this represent? This shows the value of your portfolio, or maybe just a stock or mutual fund. Basically, it shows how the prices of…
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I’m all for starting slowly. Get started with something comfortably, and then gradually make things a bit more difficult. Unfortunately, brokerage firms, RIAs, and discount brokerages don’t take this same approach. Let’s say you get up the courage to start investing. You’ve gone through this book, and you feel you are money smart. You are…
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Which of the following is possible? North Korean cyber-terrorists can hack into our banking system and wipe out our wealth. A magnitude 15 earthquake strikes in California causing the state to sink into the Pacific Ocean. Artificially intelligent robots replace 99% of global jobs leaving the population without work and income. The U.S. government could…
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