principal risk

The following is a list of top online banks that offers high yield savings account, high interest savings account, or high yield money market account. All of these accounts are FDIC insured up to $250,000. Your principal is protected and you’re guarantee a positive nominal return on investment. For March 2010, the average interest rate [...]

The following is a list of the nationally available highest yields 12-month CD rates. In general, certificates of deposit (CDs) are great investments because your principal is protected by FDIC insurance and your interest rates are guaranteed. Moreover, you can use CD Ladder to make your CD savings more flexible and effective. You can open [...]

In this article, I’ll break down the three components of saving, investing, and borrowing to accomplish your financial goals. Out of all the steps in Moolanomy’s Financial Success Plan, this step is without a doubt the most complex step. As such, I’ll keep this article at a high level, then later dive deeper into various [...]

Even financially responsible people do get into trouble and fall into debt. The most common cause is being insufficiently prepared for financial emergencies — perhaps an unexpected sickness or a sudden job loss. As such, having an emergency fund is a vital part of having a good financial health, and is an important step in [...]

Defining a good goal is hard enough in itself, but people still fail even with well thought out SMART goals. Why? The answer is simple: they fail to turn these goals into actions. Generally, a goal is broad and hard to identify practical ways to achieve it. To transform your goals into practical actions is [...]

Achieving financial success doesn’t have to be difficult. You can achieve it as long as you want it and work toward it. Unless you’re one of the outliers, the road to financial freedom is a long one. As such, it’s best to bring along a good companion and have a road map to guide you [...]

In this Ask the Expert with Larry Swedroe article, Thomas is wondering why his iShares Barclays TIPS Bond TIP ETF hasn’t paid dividend since last October and if he should switch to individual TIPS through Treasury Direct instead. Here’s the question from Thomas:
I own the TIP ETF (iShares Barclays TIPS Bond). It has not paid [...]

A while back, I provided a brief introduction to peer to peer lending. I also mentioned that there are risks involved. In general, social lending has different set of risks from that of high yield savings, certificates of deposit, or the stock market. In the simplest sense, the risks involved when investing in person to [...]

Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS) is a type of Treasury securities that provides protection against inflation and real return.  I don’t know if TIPS is the best bond to buy or not, but I am beginning to think that it is after reading articles and books by Larry Swedroe over the years.  At the very least, [...]

This is the 12th issue of the Ask The Expert column by Larry Swedroe. You can see Larry’s full biography and important disclaimer below. If you are interested in having your question answered by Larry, please send me an email via the contact page.
Now, let’s get to the questions and answers (please note that the [...]