Editor Pick

  • Credit Cards for College Students
    Finance >> Credit
    As Pink Floyd said, "Money, it's a gas. Grab that cash with both hands." This is exactly what the credit card companies want the younger generation to do - grab it and use it. What most students often forget is that "buy now" still means "pay" whether that is now or later.
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  • Why You Should Not Have Joint Accounts
    Finance >> Credit
    Some married couples believe that having joint credit card accounts will make paying off revolving debt easier when in fact, joint accounts can damage credit scores and leave both husband and wife in financial distress. Separate credit gives each party financial freedom and the ability to transfer debt if necessary. It's always best to build your credit separately. Let’s look at some examples of what could happen to couples with and without joint credit accounts.
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  • What's the Score on Your Credit?
    Finance >> Credit
    A credit score can make or break the future of your borrowing status. It is important to know what it is, where you stand and how to prevent bad credit. A credit score predicts the statistical chance of a consumer being 90 days late or more on a particular loan obligation over the next two years. The higher the score is, the less chance that the person will be late.
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Stocks
How to Pick Winning Stocks PDF Print E-mail
Written by Dr Jeffrey Wilde   
Here is nothing more exciting than finding an undervalued stock and seeing it explode out of nowhere rising in value 100% or more in a few weeks. Some stocks can move as much as 1000% in a year and…. Even after the stock market crashed in 2000, some stocks still have gone up 500% or more in a year.

So how do we find these? Well first let me say that there is no way to know which ones are going to double or triple in value. If we knew then we could literally “bet the farm” on the trade.
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Buy and Hold: How to Perpetuate Your Investment Losses PDF Print E-mail
Written by Ulli Niemann   

A recent cartoon in my daily newspaper showed two guys sitting in a bar. One is saying to the other: “I did learn something from my broker...how to diversify my investment losses.”

While this struck me as funny, there is certainly an element of truth to it judging by the number of tragic e-mails and phone calls I have received over the past couple of years.

This was brought home even more so by a reader who responded with strong disagreement to one of my articles. I advocate a methodical, disciplined approach to investing in no-load mutual funds. It keeps me invested during up markets and on the sidelines during down markets. It was exactly this approach that got me and my clients out of the market in October, 2005 and put us back in to take advantage of the April, 2009 upswing.
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How to Pay Less and Get More: Discount Broker vs Professional PDF Print E-mail
Written by Ulli Niemann   

How do you invest? What do you really pay? At the end of the day, what are your real results? These are questions smart investors should be asking themselves (but usually don't). In this era of more fees, misc. charges, holding periods and back end redemptions, even at discount brokers, how are you really making out?

Working with a new client brought this all to my attention. I know what I found may not apply to everyone; however it will apply to many and very likely apply to you.
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