All Investing Q&A

Karen, first off, you should feel good about the decision you made.
When it comes to thinking about how to pay for retirement, you need to mentally place your money into two buckets.
In bucket No. 1 is the money you are going to spend. These are the funds that are going to replace the income you read more...

It is really very simple. You build a time machine, one that will allow you read tomorrow’s newspaper today. You head off one day into the future and pick up a newspaper and turn to the investment section and see which stock had a big gain. Then, you get back in your time machine, and return to read more...

All mutual funds are required to distribute to their shareholders (that’s you) the capital gains they receive from selling stocks and bonds. That distribution usually takes place once a year, around December. (Dividends are usually passed along as they are received.) If you receive those read more...

Let’s look at in detail at exactly what those expenses are, and could be costing you—and then talk about what you can do to reduce them. Say you invest $10,000 a year in a stock mutual fund that earns the historical compound rate of 11.2% a year.
- If you were charged a 5% load, or read more...

For most people, mutual funds are an easy way to invest in the stock market. They give you diversification, and free you from spending an inordinate amount of time worrying about your investments. (That's what the mutual fund manager is for.) And they do this at a fairly low price. Expenses at read more...

In this kind of market, any little thing you can do to save a bit more, at a slightly higher rate, should not be overlooked. Here are four things to consider: It’s harder to spend money that you never touch. We have long argued to "pay yourself first" as a technique for guaranteeing read more...

The first thing you want to find out is whether it is just your funds that are under-performing, or is it all the funds like them. Wall Street has a herd mentality, which means that at some point growth funds will fall out of a favor. At another point, no one will want value, or large cap, or read more...

Please, please, please diversify. And do so immediately. Here’s why.
It is certainly true that “Invest in something you know” is one of the oldest investment ideas around. And so literally millions of us invest in the companies where we work. On one level it makes perfect sense. Who better read more...

I have talked repeatedly about the need to save regularly. To that I would add, "invest regularly as well."
My recommendation? If possible, make regular deposits from your monthly employment income into your investments. If you always invest the same dollar amount—say $100 a read more...

You are definitely on the right path. You don't want to have your future goals depend on one investment, no matter how secure that investment appears today. (Remember when the NASDAQ was trading above 5,000 ?) The more diversified your portfolio, the lower your risk.
You should start by having read more...

In essence, an American Depository Receipt (ADR) is a U.S. security that represents ownership in a foreign security. When a foreign corporation that is not listed on a U.S. exchange—and an increasing number of them are—wants to trade stock on a major exchange like the NYSE, it deposits shares read more...