THE WAMU RESCUE

The FDIC takes over Washington Mutual and finds a buyer.

JPMorgan Chase picks up the troubled thrift. Washington Mutual was seized by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Thursday night, and JPMorgan Chase (which recently bought out Bear Stearns) picked up WaMu’s banking assets at a bargain price. (WaMu shares were worth less than a [...]

AN INVESTOR’S BEST FRIENDS

Meet diversification, patience and consistency.

Any investor would do well to call on three friends during the course of his or her financial life: diversification, patience and consistency. Regardless of how the markets perform, they should be a part of your investment philosophy.

Diversification. The saying “don’t put all your eggs in [...]

THE RUSH TO ROTH IRA CONVERSIONS IN 2010

Virtually anyone can take advantage of this tax law loophole.

2010 will be an extraordinary year for tax law, a tax year so potentially advantageous that we may never see its like again. One probable 2010 phenomenon: a wave of high-income and high net worth individuals converting traditional IRAs to Roth IRAs. [...]

The $700 BILLION BAILOUT

More details emerge (and two investment banks make moves).

As the weekend developed, so did the federal government’s proposal to heal the financial markets. In a nutshell, the Treasury Department is asking Congress for up to $700 billion – the equivalent of 5% of America’s GDP – to buy up bad debt.1 As a [...]

YOU NEED ASSET PROTECTION

Never build your business or practice without it.

Don’t be someone else’s winning lottery ticket. If you’re a medical professional or a business owner, you need some form of asset protection – because what you don’t know can hurt you. If you deal with customers, clients or “the public” in any way, you [...]

Bailing Out the Markets

Unprecedented times produce unprecedented moves in Washington.

United they stood … and up the markets climbed. On a tranquil Friday morning in the Rose Garden of the White House, the financial “front line” of the U.S. government stood in solidarity and presented a bailout plan in response to the troubles in the stock markets. [...]

INVESTING WITH ENERGY

Alternative investment ideas are attracting a surge of
investors seeking diversification and reduced volatility.

Alternatives for interesting times. The last 18-24 months have been wild ones on Wall Street, and the volatility has motivated some sophisticated investors to look into non-correlated or indirectly correlated asset classes. With the rise in oil and gas prices, high [...]

ARE WOMEN SAVING AND INVESTING ENOUGH?

A majority of Americans may be underprepared for their financial futures.

Taking control of your financial future may be even more important for women than it is for men. Here’s why women need to invest and save actively.
The earnings gap. Even today, men tend to earn more than women. A fresh 2008 survey [...]

WALL STREET’S BIG SHAKEUP

What does the Lehman bankruptcy and Merrill buyout mean for investors?
It was a(nother) historic Monday on Wall Street … the second this month, in what is turning out to be a rather momentous September. Lehman Brothers, the fourth-largest investment bank in the United States, a firm that had made it through the Great Depression, [...]

YOUR ANNUAL FINANCIAL TO-DO LIST

Things to do before the New Year.

It’s about that time of year. The end of the year is a good time to review your personal finances, and to refocus your wealth-building efforts. How much financial progress did you make? What are your financial, business or life priorities for 2008?

Dust off your financial [...]