Insights

Yesterday, European Central Bank president Mario Draghi announced that interest rates would stay low in Europe for "an extended period." That stands to reason - Europe is still mired in recession, Greek and Spanish unemployment are a whopping 25%, and 18% in Portugal,...

Stocks are up again today, the 3rd day in a row after US stocks they fell roughly 5% in response to the Fed announcement last week. So far they have gained back half of the drop. Bonds are also up again today, though their selloff began in late April. They had also...

If you are a trustee of a retirement plan, whether profit sharing or pension, it's time to really pay attention. After a 31-year almost unbroken bull market, bond prices have begun to head down. Most bond funds are likely to be money losers in 2013 and 2014, and...

Over the last month the talk in the markets has been about Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke's answer to a question at a Congressional hearing. That answer was that the Fed "could" start tapering off their huge bond-buying programs that have kept interest at record...

Never before in history have central banks printed so much money and taken interest rates so low. Never before have banks given savers almost no interest and still had takers. Mortgage rates are as low as we are ever likely to see in our lifetimes. The balance at the...

The Wall St. Journal, one of the world’s great newspapers and very much worth either a paper or online subscription, even for people who don’t work in finance, had a fascinating special section called Unleashing Innovation in Tuesday’s paper. Find it online here....

Stock markets in Asia were down sharply today after the Bank of Japan did not announce an expansion of its bond-buying program. Like the US program the BOJ program has put a lot of money out there that has gone into the markets, especially during the last six months....

I have written on my blog for some time now that I think the 31-year bull market in bonds is over and that fixed income will be an asset class with poor prospects and a good bit of risk over the next few years. Rates are now set to rise from the extraordinarily low...

I'm back from a couple weeks out west and a conference on 401(k)s, so if you haven't seen a post for a while, that's why. The stock market has dropped 8 of the last 12 sessions. The bond market has also dropped sharply in the same time, in many cases wiping out the...

Nothing other than homes and remodeling them puts people in more debt than buying a replacement vehicle the wrong way. I cringe when clients tell me they have two car payments. The idea is to be debt-free guys. That's where the freedom is. When you buy more vehicle...