When interest rates rise, or are expected to, stockbrokers urge conservative investors to buy individual bonds. They appear to be safer than bond mutual funds. Just this week, I caught the following headline in an investment publication: “Individual bonds can help protect income.”
That’s 100 percent wrong. Individual bonds deprive you of extra income when interest [...]
It’s too soon to put on the party hats. The investor protection community cheered this week, when the staff of the Securities and Exchange Commission recommended that stockbrokers take more legal responsibility for the financial advice they give. But we’re a long way from moving that proposal into an actual rule of conduct. Of [...]
The popular target-date mutual funds shocked investors after the 2008 market crash. People close to retirement saw a quarter or more of their savings wash away, in funds they mistakenly thought were “safe.”
I consider these funds terrific choices for retirement savings and, by all accounts, so do you. They’re still the most popular funds in [...]
Investors use stockbrokers and investment managers for what they assume is their market-beating advice in picking stocks. FAIL. A new report from Bloomberg News finds that equity analysts are not only wrong when they list “best buys,” they’re spectacularly wrong. For all of their computers, MBAs, and six-figure bonuses, they follow the herd into stocks [...]
If you’re invested in bond mutual funds, relax. The Great Bond Collapse, touted by so many noisy commentators last month, has been put on indefinite hold. Fears of ramped up inflation and spikes in interest rates were premature. Bond funds still look like sound investments, for income and diversification.
So make yourself a hot cup of [...]
