by P.J. DiNuzzo March 6, 2014 The Optimistic Data You Never See If you want to feel depressed about the economy and the outlook for the investment markets, there are always pundits and media outlets to oblige you. I'm sure you're still seeing sober forecasts that the world is running out of oil and food, […]
by P.J. DiNuzzo March 20, 2014 Fed Moves Markets–Yet Again Investment professionals with long memories can remember the olden days when the investment markets and the U.S. economy were not–and were not supposed to be–controlled, rigged or otherwise directly manipulated by the U.S. central bank. But we are far from that today, as evidenced by […]
by P.J. DiNuzzo March 25, 2014 Complex Conversion Calculations Chances are, you know about Roth IRAs and what makes them special. Any contributions you make are taxable, and if you convert all or part of a traditional IRA to a Roth, you have to pay taxes at your ordinary income tax rate. But (the special […]
by P.J. DiNuzzo March 27, 2014 The Dangers of Instinctive Investing You've probably read about behavioral finance research. The conclusion is generally the same, no matter what aspect of our decision-making is being probed: the human mind is hard-wired to process information in certain ways which were extremely helpful when the environment contained gazelles (very […]
by P.J. DiNuzzo April 1, 2014 What??! The Stock Market is Rigged??? You may have heard about the 60 Minutes interview with author Michael Lewis, a former Wall Street broker, author of "Liar's Poker" and "The Big Short," who has just come out with a new book entitled "Flash Boys." Lewis is an eloquent and astute […]
by P.J. DiNuzzo April 10, 2014 Quarter-End Market Report – 1st Quarter, 2014 Cautious Pessimism The U.S. stock market reported very modest gains in the first quarter of the year, and it was actually uncertain until the final trading day whether the quarterly returns would be slightly positive or negative. In the end, the Wilshire 5000 […]
by P.J. DiNuzzo April 16, 2014 Global Tax Rates Tax day has arrived in the U.S., along with the usual complaints about the complexity and financial burden that federal and state taxes (and FICA) impose on our lives. But have you ever wondered how U.S. taxes compare with what citizens in other countries have to […]
by P.J. DiNuzzo May 13, 2014 Evidence for Time Diversification One area where many professional advisors disagree with academics is whether stock investments tend to become less risky as you go out in time. Advisors say that the longer you hold stocks, the more the ups and downs tend to cancel each other out, so […]
by P.J. DiNuzzo June 18 ,2014 Are Daughters a Better "Investment?" As Father's Day passes, a new survey from the online account aggregation firm Yodlee.com and Harris Interactive tells us that the financial relationship between fathers (and parents) can be very different for their sons vs. their daughters. The survey found that an astonishing 75% of […]
by P.J. DiNuzzo June 19, 2014 A "Guaranteed" Loser Why would any investment "opportunity" guarantee a negative return to its investors, who happen to be some of the shrewdest minds in the banking industry? This situation actually exists today–and the story is interesting. The European Central Bank has recently dropped its bank deposit rate to […]
