Category: Finance and Investing 101

The title of this post was based on a question I recently received from a reader - Ben - who was new to equity investing and wanted to get some basic advice on investing in the stock market. He has about $5,000 to kick start his portfolio and wanted a…

While reviewing and updating my 401K allocations at Fidelity, I noticed this relatively common graphic showing portfolio mixes (allocations) based on an investor's risk profile. Generally speaking most financial advisers and traditional market wisdom tell you that your portfolio allocation should be based on your age, which determines the duration…

The average FICO Score in the US just dipped to 714, the second straight year it's fallen. At the same time, a record 48.1% of Americans now carry a score of 750 or higher. Credit is splitting into haves and have-nots, and where you land affects almost every rate you're…

Gold traded around $4,121 an ounce on July 10, 2026, up about 22.8% from a year earlier. It's also down slightly over the past month, which is the point: gold moves, and I'm not going to pretend I know where it goes next. What I can do is lay out…

Dollar cost averaging (DCA) seems to be a hot topic of late with many experts saying to continue buying shares, even as they keep falling in price. For those of you who may not understand DCA, it basically means that you continue to buy more shares in companies that you…

The S&P 500 hit an all-time high of 7,621 in June 2026, then slid more than 4% before clawing back some ground — closing around 7,533 in mid-July. Nasdaq fell over 1% in the same stretch, dragged down by chip stocks. Nvidia is off more than 10% since its May…

Over the last 10 years I have traded all sorts of financial instruments. One that I have found particularly useful in volatile times like we have now, are options. Options provide a way to make money from both rises or falls in stock prices. It is also allows you to…

Of late there has been a lot of negative press around the accounting requirements for companies and the methods by which they have to value their assets. Some critics and company executives have even attributed the accounting requirements, and specifically the Mark to Market valuation method, as a major cause…

Much of the past and current financial market crisis is blamed on two main factors – poor risk management by company executives and the ultra-depressed housing market. Company management is paying the penalty with most failed CEO's fired and years of lawsuits and regulatory probes ahead for implicated senior executives.…

A dividend reinvestment plan (DRIP) takes the cash dividend a stock or fund pays you and automatically uses it to buy more shares — instead of depositing it in your account as cash. It's been around since the 1960s, and most brokerages now offer it as a free, one-time setting…

Teaching a child to save doesn't start with a lecture about the stock market — it starts with a goal they actually want and real money they control. Here's a practical, step-by-step approach, plus a genuinely new tool: the federal Trump Accounts program that launched July 4, 2026. Step 1:…

FEAR is one of the most powerful forces in investing, as it is in life. One of the biggest universal fears is that of losing money, particularly when it can be so tough to earn in the first place. Yet those who fail to embrace fear run the risk of…

Diversification won't stop you from losing money, and it won't guarantee a profit either. What it does is limit how much damage any single stock, sector, or asset class can do to your overall portfolio when things go wrong — and something always eventually goes wrong somewhere. Here's how to…