Bypassing Probate You may have heard about the horrors of probate, but in truth, probate has gotten an undeservedly bad reputation, especially in recent years. If you bypass probate, your estate will go to your beneficiaries without any court proceeding, and you may save a certain amount of time and expenses. However, there is usually […]

Effective Federal Funds Rate Monthly Update: Key Insights & Analysis September 18, 2024 The Effective Federal Funds Rate is a crucial benchmark interest rate that influences the cost of borrowing and the overall financial landscape in the United States. Set by the Federal Reserve, changes in the Effective Federal Funds Rate can significantly impact economic […]

Quick question: which behavioral bias do you think is the mostdangerous? Is it our tendency to follow the herd and chase trends? (This one playsout a lot in the stock market.) Maybe the human desire to avoid losses even at the expense of the biggerpicture? (Another one that hurts investors.) Perhaps our propensity to oversimplify […]

Quick question: What do you usually find yourself reading? News summaries, headlines, and quick bits to keep yourself updated? Or longer reads like books and articles? We’re ever more inundated with information that’s eager to capture our attention. We click because we want to stay up to speed and avoid missing out. The trouble is, […]

What if you could read minds or hug someone through the internet?1 What if you could print your dinner or print some implants that gave you superpowers?1, 2  That’s not just the stuff of comic books or sci-fi movies. It could be a reality soon with technology of the future. Of course, there’s no way […]

Money is much more than a medium of exchange for goods and services. Money reflects our personal values and the hard work we put into earning it. How we treat money, save it and spend it, is a reflection of our internal beliefs — our money mindset. When it comes to money, we all have […]

“If you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time.” – Zig Ziglar That’s true for most aspects of life, including our finances. Most of us realize that. It’s why we set New Year’s resolutions—and why more than half of all Americans set some type of financial goal as a resolution each year.1 As […]

The Markets-2015   Well, 2015 is in the rear view mirror; and what a year it was from an investing perspective. Let’s look back at the financial markets over the year. The S&P 500 was down.73% for 2015; the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 2.23%; the Barclay’s Aggregate Bond Index was down 1.84%; and […]

There has been much discussion about investment strategy. Is an active management strategy (where the investor or an investment manager actively selects the investments in the portfolio) or a passive strategy (simply trying to replicate a broad market index with selected investments) the better choice? Or does the best answer lie somewhere in between (a […]

The July 2013 issue of Bloomberg Businessweek found HERE includes troubling trends in college expenses as originally presented by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, National Center for Education Statistics.  Since 1999 and adjusted for inflation, tuition has increased more than 50%.  As costs continue to rise, if sources of college funds fall short of what […]