Investing

Bear Market – Never Mind

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The stock market dipped below the magic 20 percent needed to call it a bear market yesterday. Media outlets were quick to throw up their bear market headlines, but the markets rallied and exposed the headline game as a gimmick with flashy words.

Muni Taxes Stay the Same

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The U.S. Supreme Court in a 7-2 decision upheld the central tenant of most state’s municipal bond tax policy, specifically that a state can exempt it’s own muni bonds from taxes while taxing the interest on other state’s muni bonds. So, nothing changes from before. If you live in California, the only way to avoid state tax on bond interest is to buy California Municipal Bonds. If you buy bonds from Texas, they can tax that interest. Taxes and Bonds Because interest on bonds is taxed as ordinary income, avoiding taxes on that interest is more important to investors than avoiding taxes on dividends paid by stocks. Most corporate bonds are taxed at both the federal and state level which reduces the real rate of return to the investor. Municipal bonds issued by states are exempt from federal income tax because one branch of the government cannot tax another branch. Whether or not the state municipal bonds are exempt from state income tax is determined by the laws of the states they are issued in. Most states make their own bonds tax-free as a way to make them more attractive for purchase. This tax-free status, plus the relative safety of …

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Get Rich Not So Quick in Real Estate

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As you may have noticed, we are getting ready to sell our house.  After living in our first house for about 7 years, we’ve been in our last two for 2 and 3 years respectively. The interesting thing is that each time we have made a lot of money.  The past two times we’ve used this new wealth to buy more expensive houses.  This time, we’ll be trading down, but we will also be paying off every dollar of debt we have other than the new mortgage.  This isn’t insignificant when you consider that we are in our early thirties and both had to go to college on the back of student loans (including the wife’s three years in law school.) Looking back, I’ve noticed a parallel to the stock market.  In the stock market, there are day traders.  You probably remember more than one or two friends who tried this way to easy wealth in the late 90s.  Only, it turns out it isn’t so easy, and ironically, that most of the people who thought they were day traders really weren’t. A day trader buy and sells positions within the same day.  The entire concept is based upon taking …

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SEC Thinks Prospectuses Are Too Big!

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laugh I laughed so hard I ended up crying. The [tag]SEC[/tag] is concerned that the prospectuses that mutual fund companies send to their clients are too big and full of legal mumbo jumbo to be useful to the general public. How many of you think that mutual fund companies WILLINGLY CHOOSE to spend the money to develop, write, print, and mail a 38-page book to your house, not just once, but every single year you own the fund?

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Buy Real Estate?

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realestateicon Whether or not now is a good time to buy [tag]real estate[/tag] depends, as most things do in finance, on time and amount. For example, if you have been renting for the last year or two and have saved up 20% for a down payment and you just found the house of your dreams, then yes, now is a great time to buy real estate. But what about people looking for a good investment? Is now the right time?

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The Truth About Stock

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One if the most frequent questions I get from people is what kind of [tag]insider tips[/tag] and tricks do I know as a financial planner. Of course, most people don’t want to hear it, and sometimes it can take a while to explain. Today, one of those secrets is revealed over at What Is A Stock – It’s Not What You Think on the main Finance Gourmet web site. Check it out. Then, subscribe our feed so you can get the next article which will reveal the secret about the [tag]stock[/tag] market and how stocks are priced.

Do You Need a Financial Planner or Financial Advisor?

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On the Finance Gourmet website, the first part of our latest article has been posted. It covers that tough topic of whether or not you need a financial advisor or financial planner. It is unbiased, and subsequent sections will give you all the details you never got so you won’t have to ask the question again.

Want the one question quiz?

1) What are you doing right now to protect your retirement portfolio from the coming recession, and what did you do last time to protect if from the falling housing market and the sub-prime mortgage crisis?

Write it down. Seriously. You are only cheating yourself if you don’t. Writing it down will help you make a fair analysis.

The answer on the next page will let you know if you need a financial advisor or financial planner.

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