A first-world problem, and nothing more? Not quite. Getting rich quick can be liberating, but it can also be frustrating. Sudden wealth can help you resolve anxieties about funding your retirement or your children’s college educations, and newfound financial freedom can lead to time freedom...
Why sell shares when you can gift them? If you have appreciated stocks in your portfolio (and you hold them in a non-qualified account that doesn’t get special tax treatment), then you might want to consider donating those shares to charity rather than selling them...
Do its risks offset its advantages? Has high-frequency trading made things better on Wall Street, or worse? It has its adherents and detractors. What does HFT amount to – a lurking danger, a market necessity, a hidden tax on the small investor, a net plus? Frankly,...
How do you contend with it? How do you avoid letting it unnerve you? If you want significant reward potential, you will have to assume some risk. Anyone investing in securities – particularly stocks – must accept that reality. Investing in the markets gives you an opportunity...
Sometimes you can take penalty-free early withdrawals from retirement accounts. Do you need to access your retirement money early? Usually, anyone who takes money out of an IRA or a retirement plan prior to age 59½ faces a 10% early withdrawal penalty on the distribution. That...
If you move away from equities with age, are you making a mistake? For some time, financial professionals have encouraged investors to lessen their exposure to the stock market as they get older. After all, a 60-year-old has less time to recover from a market...
The “dirty dozen” that criminals & cheats try to get away with year-round. Year after year, criminals try to scam certain taxpayers. Year after year, certain taxpayers resort to schemes in an effort to put one over on the IRS. These cons occur year-round, not just...
Examining the potential differences between assumption & reality. Financially, how might retirement differ from your expectations? To some degree, it will. Just as few weather casters can accurately predict a month’s worth of temperatures and storms, few retirees find their financial futures playing out as precisely...
You may be tempted to do it – but do you really want to? While you might be able to borrow from a 401(k), that doesn’t mean you should. Yes, we are in a recession. Yes, times are tough. But borrowing from your 401(k) could prove...
Take steps so criminals won’t take vital information from you. America is enduring a data breach epidemic. As 2013 ended, the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics released its 2012 Victims of Identity Theft report. Its statistics were sobering. About one in 14 Americans aged 16 or...