Having a qualified tax advisor saves considerable trouble. When you are just starting out this is not something to be concerned with.  If all you have is a W2 and a couple of mutual fund 1099’s any number of freely available tax filing software programs will get the job done. Once you accumulate some assets […]

Commonly held ideas should not be relied on as gospel.  People who spend time with investments come into contact with many experts expounding market theory. When you are new it is not a bad thing to listen to some of this.  It helps build a framework for your own thinking.  Reading such things will introduce […]

CEF Connect is a well-constructed website dedicated to data on closed-end funds.  It is sponsored by Nuveen and therefore ad-free.  This is a smart move.  Every time you go to their site you see the company name and they did it without adding layers of content from third-party marketing services. No registration is needed.  There […]

Signing papers for an annuity does not mean the purchase is final. First let me say this: Annuities have gotten a lot of negative press over the last fifteen years and it is not necessarily deserved.  All annuity transactions are not bad. A good family friend illustrates this. She bought a lump-sum immediate annuity. This […]

Caution is needed when using the Internet to access financial accounts.  Modern technology has made banking easier than ever.  But there are people all over the world who try to steal using that same technology. By now most of us have had our email account hacked. Something like that is more of a nuisance than […]

Selling after you have made money is more difficult than it sounds. Once an investment runs up there is a decision to make. Then you have to let go. The decision basically boils down to one thing: do you think the investment is still a good one? Earlier this year I sold Walgreens stock (Nasdaq: […]

Always make sure to file a complete return on time and settle the balance due.  I don’t say this because I am a fan of taxation.  It is simply better than the alternative. Investors need to be aware: your brokerage firm sends records of every taxable event to the IRS.  Until recently this did not […]

Panic produces great investment opportunities.  As a general rule trying to time the market is not good strategy.  But witnessing calamity is an exception.  I will illustrate with two personal examples. First let’s look at the September 11th attacks.  The NYSE was closed for four days following this tragedy.  The same was true of NASDAQ. […]

It is a mistake to open an IRA before accumulating a significant level of savings first.  I have had two of them, both when I was just starting out, and they are both gone because I didn’t understand this idea. In the late 90’s a lot of talk about IRA greatness came my way, both […]