Insights

There is a lot of news lately about rising home prices. Let's take a look at the long term. Below is a Pew Research Center chart of real median home prices since 1968. Real means adjusted for inflation. This is my preferred way of looking at things because it takes...

If you are a trustee of a 401(k) plan, you need to regularly check to see if your investment options are each in the lowest net cost share class for that fund. You would be very surprised at how many times I find in looking at plans that they are not. Sometimes they...

Fiduciary - In law, a person in a position of authority whom the law obligates to act solely on behalf of the person he or she represents and in good faith. - The Concise Dictionary Why is this important? Because, the legal obligation to act solely in the best...

Since the general market is falling, Apple will probably fall with it, faster because it is so out of favor right now. When the market is dropping out of favor stocks get sold harder. Always have. What a complete contrast to the perception of Apple last summer! The...

Yesterday, I wrote about the falling market and why it might be falling. I think it probably has further to go and will thus be yet another consecutive year when the high for the first 9 months was hit in mid-April.

Stocks gave back yesterday's bounce from the drop Monday. Gold, which had dropped hard Friday and Monday, stayed at the low level hit Monday morning. European stocks were up in the morning but a very poor report on German car sales and rumors of a credit rating...

Between Friday and Monday, the price of gold has fallen 12.75%. Why? 1) Cyprus is considering selling some of its gold to help pay for the bailout. While that is a relatively small amount, there are worries that bigger countries like France and Spain might consider...

President Obama proposed today that no one should be able to have more in their tax-advantaged retirement accounts than what it would take to purchase an annuity paying $200K/year. Today, the savings needed to generate that is roughly $3 million. The government would...

Today is turning out to be a nice day in the markets. Indexes (or indices, if you prefer) are up 1% - 1.5% in the U.S. Not only is it fun gaining more than 1% in a day, but this is a new high for the year, after being flat for the last month. Usually, flat action that...

Things are not always what they seem, Alice. Since last Friday's unemployment rate shook people up some and is in the news, let's see if it really tells the story. Below are two charts from the Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics current website http://data.bls.gov....