Advisors

For many small investors, rising interest rates look like a blessing wrapped around a curse. As the accelerating economy of the last year has pushed rates higher, that means the value of bonds they already own fall. Is the search for yield worth it, or fraught with new risks most retirees (or prospective retirees) don’t

For sophisticated bond market investors, no three words invoke more fear and debate than “inverted yield curve.” Yet many individual investors don’t understand inversion and why a healthy fixed-income market is so critical to their financial well-being. With the near-800-point drop in the Dow on Tuesday being at least partially attributed to the sudden inversion

If you’re like other retirees, you’re eager to see just how big your Social Security check will be next year. The Social Security Administration has released its cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA, notices online. To find out what your payment will be, log on to your My Social Security account. Your cost-of-living adjustment will be found

Americans of all ages do a lot of thinking about retirement — but that doesn’t mean they’re actually doing much else about securing a comfortable one, according to a new survey. In fact, a secure retirement as part of the American dream may involve just that — a lot of dreaming. The October survey of

Shave down your tax bill in the future by funding these two savings accounts in the present. Employees are likely familiar with the traditional 401(k), an account that allows you to put away pre-tax dollars and have them grow on a tax-deferred basis. Once you begin drawing down income in retirement, you will pay taxes

Liquidity is like good health. You don’t really appreciate it until you lose it. Investors are starting to appreciate it. As volatility has surged, first in the stock market and now in credit markets, liquidity is starting to dry up across segments of the corporate bond markets. The ominous widening of spreads in the high-yield

While I can’t give you any investment advice or help you ignore the current market conditions, I can teach you how to manage stress so that “volatile” describes the market and not your mindset. Emotions can help influence decision-making, but when it comes to considering investment decisions in a volatile market, getting stressed out may

Survey after survey reveals that millennials are resigned to the idea that Social Security, as we know it, might not be there by the time they reach retirement age. According to a Transamerica survey, 81 percent of millennials polled believe this to be true. This is in contrast to a 2011 survey, which found that

Side hustles can be a great way to bring in extra cash or plant the seeds to grow your own small business. As an entrepreneur, you are fulfilling many roles, and it can be easy for some of those jobs to fall through the cracks. Whatever your hustle, one of your key responsibilities is to

We’ve all heard of voodoo economics, but voodoo investing? Noted Washington, D.C.-area radio personality and former financial advisor Dawn Bennett was convicted earlier this week of fraud, found to have bilked 46 listeners, advisory clients and friends who trusted her out of some $20 million in a Ponzi scheme. Prosecutors say she used voodoo in

The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed more than 1,300 points earlier this month in the most dramatic drop since February. If you are a client of Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, you may have received a message from your financial advisor. The purpose of the message would be to tell you exactly what happened in the

It’s that time of year again for the municipal bond market. The fall months are typically weak for muni bonds and although this year has generally bucked seasonal trends, it looks that way again this year. “There’s been a lot of unevenness in a usually more predictable market,” said Peter Hayes, head of the Municipal

When investors sit down with their financial advisor to prepare their tax returns next year, they’ll be confronted with new rules that for many mean an increase in the cost of having an advisor. The new tax law passed by Congress last year ends deductions on some types of advisory fees, including those based on

If you want to start your own business, you need two things: conviction that you’re solving a problem and the belief that you are going to solve it better than anyone else. That is according to Elliot Weissbluth, who founded wealth management firm HighTower Advisors in 2008. Beyond that, there are a couple of other

Mark McCarron, chief investment officer for Wescott Financial Advisory Group, believes in global diversification when it comes to investing in stocks. But not when it comes to bonds. The reason: currency risk. “Our fixed income exposure is almost exclusively in U.S. dollars,” said McCarron, whose firm manages more than $2 billion in assets. “Currencies are

The many big companies disrupted by blockchain have now made it a priority to harness this technology. As is typically the case when faced with disruption, large companies are seeking to defend their territory by adopting the very tool that threatens them. With blockchain there’s a lot at stake. The global market for blockchain-related products

Gyrating markets, rising rates and significant market volatility will always create anxiety for investors and leave them with a bad, sinking feeling. Those big swings typically cause investors great concern, no matter the rise or fall. But what is the root of the anxiety? Behavioral science suggests that humans are “uncertainty reduction” machines. That’s one