“Jobless recovery” continues to be the most apt descriptor of the employment situation for the period May 2010. New jobs were reported at +431,000 which would be a terrific number but 411,000 of those were census workers, i.e. temporary government employees. Worse, there is anecdotal evidence that some of these workers have been counted a second time having returned to their posts to help track... 

For people looking for stock tips, it’s important first that you understand about true diversification. The world is driven by money and the price of stock is driven mostly by the ultra rich investors who occasionally move their money in and out of major asset classes. There are various cycles that result as the money will flow to different asset classes. Although in the long run, stocks have... 

How well have the markets done in the last 12 months? No matter how you look at it the performance of investment securities has been extraordinary . There are some of the more exotic fund types which were up well over 100% in the 12 months but at the same time there were plenty of widely followed groups that did close to 75%. The S&P 500 funds were up 49% for the year and 5.4% for the quarter... 

Is there a real difference between saving money and investing money? Think about this way, is there anything you could do by saving that you couldn’t do by investing? Can you buy a new car by investing? Sure you can. But if you are using longer term investing disciplines and products to save for a new car you could find yourself in the unfortunate position of seeing some of your investments... 

The March Employment situation report came out this morning. There was some good news here in that total new jobs, including census workers and other temporary positions, increased by 162,000. Further it is believed that some workers were counted in March instead of February because of severe winter weather which hit late in the reporting period in some east coast cities. That could have caused... 

We recently discussed some investment strategies employing fixed income securities, i.e. bonds. This time we’ll talk more about what kind of returns to expect. We’ll start with something we see everyday and relate that to the discussion on bonds. The stock market did quite well from its low in late 2002 to the high in 2007, almost 15% per year. We subsequently witnessed a huge decline in 2008,... 

Are you getting bad investment advice? If you, like most people, have been approaching investing the traditional way, you probably are. In fact, if you have been losing a lot in the stock market or if your nest egg isn’t growing very fast or at all, you may have been on the receiving end of very conventional — and pretty darn bad — advice. Read on to find out why — and what... 

Most of us know that “bonds” are a recommended addition to your portfolio but how many really know how to value them or how to buy them. Hopefully we can clarify some of the less well understood issues and give you some real guidelines on using them. Bonds are nothing more than fixed income securities, which is to say that their value is derived from the interest bonds pay to the holder. The... 

Market Technicals Where is the market headed? 2010 is going to be a volatile year for investors. The federal government is running trillion dollar deficits and issuing massive amounts of debt. With interest rates near zero in the short end of the market, it would appear that they have nowhere to go except up. The only economic strength that was seen in the...