I recently came across a calculator developed by Morningstar to help families estimate future college costs and to determine whether they are on track with saving to meet the future costs of higher education. Let’s have a look at what this tool can and cannot do and how such a tool may be useful. The [...]
Archive for the ‘Diversification’ Category
Calculating the Cost of a College Education
Posted in 401(k), Active Investing, Diversification, financial planning, Tools, Uncategorized, Wealth, tagged college, college education, saving for college, Tuition on February 15, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
Dividend Stocks vs. Bonds: Are They Worth the Risk?
Posted in 401(k), Active Investing, Asset Allocation, Diversification, Dividends, financial planning, Income Investing, Investors, retirement income, retirement planning, Uncategorized, Volatility, tagged Bogleheads, bonds, Burton Malkiel, Dividend Stocks, income, Treasury bonds on February 10, 2012 | 2 Comments »
One of the recurring themes in the financial press in recent years is a warning to income-oriented investors not to pile into dividend-paying stocks to boost portfolio income. The Wall Street Journal has a recent article on this topic titled, “Why Dividend Stocks Aren’t the New Bonds.” This article is motivated by the fact that [...]
From the Portfolioist Book Shelf: Risk Less and Prosper by Zvi Bodie and Rachelle Taqqu
Posted in Asset Allocation, Behavioral Finance, book review, Books, Diversification, financial planning, Long-term investing, Low Cost Investing, Rebalancing, Regular Investing, Retirement, retirement income, retirement planning, Stock Investing, Uncategorized, Volatility, tagged bonds, Risk Less and Prosper, TIPS, Worry Free Investing, ZVI Bodie on January 26, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
The recently-published book by Zvi Bodie and Rachelle Taqqu, Risk Less and Prosper: Your Guide to Safer Investing, provides a unique perspective on how to meet the challenge of long-term financial planning. The book is well-organized into a number of steps required for identifying and organizing long-term goals and thinking through how to meet these [...]
What is Your Risk Appetite?
Posted in 401(k), Diversification, financial planning, Income Investing, Investors, Long-term investing, Market Outlook, Market Timing, Markets, pension plans, pensions, Retirement, retirement income, retirement planning, Risk, Uncategorized, Volatility, tagged quicken, retirement planning on January 23, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
Guest Blog from Quicken.com. Only one thing always happens in the financial markets: Values fluctuate. Before investing in any market, at any price, in any climate, prudent investors think about how much fluctuation they can handle. In other words, how much can your portfolio go down before you start to lose sleep? We all have [...]
Is Your Brain a Barrier to Smart Investing?
Posted in 401(k), Active Investing, Asset Allocation, Behavioral Finance, Books, Diversification, ETFs, Financial Advisors, financial planning, Income Investing, Investors, Long-term investing, Markets, Mutual Funds, Personalization, retirement income, Risk, Uncategorized, tagged asset allocation, Behavioral Finance, Daniel Kahneman, David Swensen, Fees, investing, management fees, mutual funds, rebalancing, retirement planning, volatility on January 5, 2012 | 1 Comment »
Guest blog by Daniel Solin, Mint.com. The evidence showing that most individual investors significantly underperform the market is compelling. A study done by Dalbar, a leading financial services market research firm, found that, during the 20 years from 1991 through 2010, the average stock fund investor earned returns of only 3.83% per year, while the [...]
Burton Malkiel: Buy Munis, Foreign Bonds, and Dividend Stocks
Posted in Active Investing, Asset Allocation, Bonds, Diversification, financial planning, Income Investing, Market Outlook, Market Timing, Stock Investing, Uncategorized, tagged Bill Gross, Burton Malkiel, Dividiend Stocks, Foreign Bonds, Munis, Treasury bonds, Warren Buffett, yields on December 16, 2011 | 6 Comments »
Burton Malkiel, Princeton professor and author of A Random Walk Down Wall Street, had an Op Ed piece in the Wall Street Journal on December 7th that advocates rethinking simple indexed portfolios. While Vanguard has recently published research asserting the superiority of a simple asset allocation made up of 50% allocation in a stock index [...]
Lemons or Lemonade?
Posted in Behavioral Finance, Diversification, financial planning, Income Investing, Investors, Market Outlook, Personalization, Portfolio Investing 101, Uncategorized, Wealth, tagged Accrual Anomaly, cash flow, Dr. Richard Sloan, earnings, Len Zacks, The Handbook of Equity Market Anomalies, zacks, zacks.com on November 23, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Guest Blog by Kip Robbins, CFA, Zacks.com. This past Sunday it was 71 degrees and dry in Chicago. If you’ve ever lived here in November, you know that’s an anomaly. At this time of year, it’s usually 44 and wet. I felt so warm, I decided to have a glass of lemonade which is usually [...]
The Five Biggest Financial Issues for People with Children At Home
Posted in 401(k), debt, Diversification, financial planning, Investors, Long-term investing, Market Outlook, Portfolio Investing 101, Real Estate, Regular Investing, Retirement, retirement planning, Uncategorized, Wealth, tagged college savings, Elizabeth Warren, emergency savings, financial literacy, retirement, The Two Income Trap on November 21, 2011 | 1 Comment »
This is the second article in a series. The first is titled The Five Biggest Financial Issues for Pre-Retirees. The years in which you are raising children are among the most important in your life, and financial choices and decisions are no small part. First, you are managing the widest range of financial demands. You [...]

