What if pre-retirement savers have been doing things all wrong? Instead of focusing on stocks, to grow money for your later years, advisors are looking, increasing, at current income guarantees. They’re asking how you’re going to pay your bills when your paycheck stops.
Traditionally, you’re supposed to keep 50 or 60 percent of your money in [...]
Stay with your stocks, is the message that investors are getting from some key market and economic forecasters. They’re betting that the economy can stand up by itself, as the government cuts its budget and the stimulus programs gradually wind down.
Not that there isn’t plenty to worry about: high gasoline prices, unfinished revolutions in the [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
It’s a tricky moment for bond-fund investors. The economy is improving. Interest rates and inflation are going to rise, which means that the price of shares in bond mutual funds will fall.
If you’re making new fixed-income investments, these facts suggest that cash is a better place for money right now. Choose a money [...]
