Investing

Wall Street skips a beat on three words. The words were “around six months,” and they were spoken by Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen at the Federal Open Market Committee’s March 19 press conference. Those three words sent the Dow south 190 points; it lost 114 points on the trading day. Specifically, Yellen was responding…

You buy a corporate bond at par or at a discount, right? It just seems like common sense. What would lead you to purchase a corporate bond at a premium? Actually, investors do sometimes buy fixed-income securities with coupon rates above current market rates. If interest rates are on the way up, buying a premium…

Stocks rise, fall … and rise again. Volatility certainly came back to Wall Street during the first several weeks of 2014 in the form of a 7.2% descent for the Dow Jones Industrial Average and a 5.9% retreat for the NASDAQ. The declines gave investors pause: was a correction underway? Would bulls be held back…

An alternative to the common fund. People invest in mutual funds and exchange-traded funds all the time, but unit investment trusts (UITs) remain comparatively underappreciated and unrecognized. They really aren’t that mysterious, and their popularity is growing – in fact, total net assets invested in unit trusts increased 151% during 2009-12. The word “trust” may…

This might not surprise you: 2013 is going in the books as the worst year bond funds have ever seen. According to TrimTabs Investment Research, investors yanked $72 billion out of bond mutual funds in 2013 – all of it after May. Those net outflows alone exceeded the record of $63 billion seen in 1994.…

December 18 turned out to be T-Day: the day on which the Federal Reserve finally tapered QE3. In making the move, the Fed acknowledged an improving economy; Wall Street quickly and enthusiastically applauded its decision. The Fed will reduce its monthly asset purchases by $10 billion. QE3 will continue, but the central bank will buy…

Investing Advice – KISS means “keep it simple, stupid.” Two of the most renowned investors who have ever lived – Warren Buffett and Peter Lynch – have followed this principle in building their fortunes. As Lynch famously put it, “Know what you own, and know why you own it.” Those who study the so-called “Oracle…

At the end of October, the S&P 500 was up 24.39% in the past 12 months. What investor wouldn’t want gains like that? As uplifting as that market advance was for many, some baby boomers missed out on it. They were simply too afraid to get back into stocks – they couldn’t dispense with their…

Investors are looking everywhere for better yields – but how many of them look into Master Limited Partnerships? Many investors have never heard of MLPs. Others have, but assume they are complex and esoteric. In reality, investing in MLPs isn’t that mysterious. They trade on public exchanges, and today there are even MLP mutual funds…

In January, will the federal government be shuttered again? At first thought, it seems inconceivable that Congress would want to go through another protracted fight like the one that shut things down for 16 days in October. That could occur, however, if a new budget panel doesn’t meet its deadline. Once more, the clock is…