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Welcome to the end of the week! Just sit back, relax, and enjoy this weeks roundup in another edition of Happy Hour.
If you’re a fan of TED Talks, take a look at the Talks at Google channel on Youtube. Google brings in authors, musicians, and other speakers to talk about their books and other topics. There’s been a couple recent videos worth watching on investing. Continue Reading…
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When you invest in funds, knowing the different stock market indexes is key to building a portfolio and tracking its performance. There are two basic reasons why you should know what each index measures:
This is because you’re either invested in index funds or picking mutual funds that try to beat an index.
The first point is fairly straight forward. To better understand how an index fund works, just research the index it tracks.
The index tells you the type of stocks in the fund and how the fund invests based on the rules laid out. Just knowing those two things should give you a good idea if it fits in your portfolio or not. Continue Reading…
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Welcome to the end of the week! Just sit back, relax, and enjoy this weeks roundup in another edition of Happy Hour.
It’s been a bad week for Comcast. It started when a customer released a recording of his experience with customer service. It’s worth a listen. Despite Comcast’s apologies blaming their customer rep went rogue, news broke that this is par for the course. To add to that PR mess, a video repair agent fessed up to more problems to the Consumerist. Continue Reading…
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There is no denying the popularity of ETFs. As we watch this market continue to grow, it’s only natural to see the unsuccessful funds fail along the way. This leads to ETF liquidation and investors worried about their money.
When an ETF closes, it’s not a guarantee you’ll lose money. The good news is there are steps you can take to avoid these unsuccessful ETFs and ways to deal with the liquidation process if it happens to you.
So why does an ETF get shut down? The same reason any fund does – a lack of invested money. There are several reasons for this, which happen to be the same reasons to avoid suspect ETFs: Continue Reading…
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Welcome to the end of the week! Just sit back, relax, and enjoy this weeks roundup in another edition of Happy Hour.
Show me someone who invests for income and I’ll show someone overpaying for dividend stocks. Dividend investing is a popular pastime for many investors. The idea of getting paid while you wait is a big seller.
To that end, it works best when the stocks are cheapest. A double whammy. You lock in higher yields while you capture capital gains. Reinvest it and it’s compounding at its best. Continue Reading…
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The rise of index funds, and the low-cost price wars, has changed much of the financial industry. The days of high cost active funds are dwindling. But if the financial industry is good at anything, its finding a way to reinvent itself, at the expense of your wallet.
Introducing Smart Beta – the newest iteration of index funds and ETFs that try to push the boundaries of performance. Some succeed, others won’t, but collectively, these smart beta funds make up a range of strategies.
In other words, you have more fund choices, with a range of differences, some more confusing than before, and more are coming. This guide is meant as a starting point to learning more about smart beta ETFs, how it works, and what you should know before buying the hype. Continue Reading…