typical investor

Financial independence is a term typically used to describe a state where you have sufficient assets to live a certain lifestyle indefinitely without having to work or be employed.  Whether your income is derived from interest on savings, investment income, real estate income or something else, it really doesn’t matter.  The key is that you’re [...]

A mutual fund represents money contributed by multiple investors.  That money is managed by an individual, or more likely, a whole slew of individuals.  Not surprisingly, those folks who help manage and oversee your money do not do it on a volunteer basis.  They get paid.  Do you want to guess who pays them?  You [...]

If you’re a savvy investor, you most certainly have a fair bit of cash tucked away for general spending and emergencies. The stock market is a long term investment and if 2009 taught us anything, it was to not have money you need to spend in the stock market. So where do you put the [...]

Investment advisers and the investment industry has continuously stressed the importance of diversification and asset allocation, however investors have often ignored this, as they were too busy chasing high returns. Since the market meltdown over a year ago investors have learned a hard lesson that asset allocation is vital to an investment portfolio. In this [...]

Most financial advisors will recommend against any attempts to time the market. It can’t be done, they will tell you, and I agree. Timing the market or specifically identifying market tops or bottoms as opportunities to buy or sell is usually a futile effort. What financial advisors fail to tell you, however, is that market [...]

When you are leaving a job where you have contributed to a 401k plan, you have three options: cash out your 401k, keep it in your current plan, or move it to another qualified retirement account. A qualified retirement account could be your new employer’s 401k plan, a Traditional IRA, or a Roth IRA. The [...]

I began investing in single family homes with a good friend and business partner about 4 years ago. In that time, we’ve purchases and remodeled 5 single family homes, all of which are rented by reasonably reliable tenants. Over that time we’ve learned a thing or two about investing in real estate. In this article, [...]

In this Ask the Expert with Larry Swedroe article, Rob observed that none of the alternative investments provided sufficient risk reduction to soften the impact of the current Bear Market. Diversification doesn’t seem to be working. What went wrong? Here’s the question from Randy:
Dear Larry,
I’m reading your book, The Only Guide to Alternative Investments You’ll [...]

In this Ask The Expert With Larry Swedroe article, Randy is shying away from the stock market and wondering if he should invest his money in Treasury Inflation Protected Securities (TIPS), or in Certificates of Deposit (CDs). Here’s the question from Randy:
Hi Larry…..seeing that the 5 year TIPS auction in January (reissue) offered a nice [...]

The recent trend in bank CD (certificate of deposit) rates has, needless to say, been a negative one. If you were following deposit rates even 1 year ago you would have witnessed a unique time in which banks where offering some of the most lucrative rates in recent history. During the winter – spring of [...]