The financial markets were in a rout last week. Stocks lost 10% in a matter of days over fears of the coronavirus spreading.

To some extent the drop was due. Not due-to-coronavirus, just due. The market has seemingly defied gravity over the past year, ignoring every supposed classic signal that it was time for a downward correction. Coronavirus ( Read more... )

Virgin Islands Travelog #18
Ready to GET BLENT, St. Thomas USVI - Tue, 31 Dec 2019, 11:30pmAs we spend our last night in the Virgin Islands and wind toward midnight on New Years Eve, a time of reflection about the past, I would be remiss if I didn't mention one thing that's made this year-end trip to the Virgin Islands very different than last year ( Read more... )

Yesterday I wrote about how financial gifts can encourage either good or bad money habits by the recipient. I gave an example with my parents of how squandering money is not the sole province of the young. Since I dragged my parents a bit on how they spent money they inherited in their late 50s/early 60s it's only fair that I should take stock of ( Read more... )

I read an interesting article on the investing site Seeking Alpha a few weeks ago. It was about how to give money to a younger relative (son/daughter, grandchild, etc.) in such a way that the gift promotes good money habits rather than create or perpetuate bad money habits ( Read more... )

Zip. Zilch. Zero. Nada. That's why my stock in one of my old employers is worth. It's a company I worked at for 7 years.

I mentioned yesterday that my present employer bought a company I used to work for. Well, they got a good price for it. Good for the buyer, that is. My old company was bought out for much less than the amount of cash the venture ( Read more... )

There's a lot of crap advice out there for how to save money. The problem starts with even the term, "save money". The question really is how to build wealth, whether that's to retire comfortably years from now, or afford a big-ticket item like a nice house, or simply achieve a higher standard of living. Saving is part of that but on it's own it's ( Read more... )

I like to read articles about retirement planning as I've been doing a lot of such planning myself the last several years. It turns out, though, that my own sophistication as a planner and investor is already well beyond most articles. That's okay; there are certainly other people out there, like I was when I was younger, who need entry-level ( Read more... )

This weekend I redeemed a US Savings Bond. I had it in my desk drawer for nearly thirty-three years! Here are 5 Things ( Read more... )

I had an interesting exchange with a few people in an investing forum elsenet. The context was a investment analysis article arguing that tobacco giant Philip Morris is a good investment buy, financially.

In the comments section a person named Larry (screen name abbreviated here) wrote:

There are many stocks that could in one way or another be ( Read more... )

In the wake of Donald Trump's surprising electoral victory there is one prediction I'm glad I got wrong. I had started telling friends a week ago that if Trump won on Tuesday we'd see the financial markets drop by at least 5% on Wednesday ( Read more... )