Personal Finance
How Insurance Works: Protecting Your Wealth
You can spend years building a portfolio, saving every month, watching the compounding do its work — and one uninsured event can take it all back. A house…
Personal Finance
Personal Finance
How to Calculate Your Net Worth
Your net worth is the single number that captures your entire financial position. You calculate it by subtracting everything you owe (liabilities) from everything you own (assets). If…
Personal Finance
What Is a Budget? The 50/30/20 Rule
A budget is a written plan for what your money will do each month before you start spending it. That sentence is the whole idea. It is more…
Retirement Planning
What Is an IRA? Traditional and Roth Explained
A young couple sat in my office about ten years ago. He was 29, she was 27, both schoolteachers in the western suburbs. They'd just paid off her…
Retirement Planning
What Is a 401(k)? Your Employer Retirement Plan Explained
A 401(k) is an account your employer sets up that lets you save for retirement before income tax is taken out of your paycheck. The money grows tax-deferred,…
Personal Finance
What Is Compound Interest? The Eighth Wonder of the World
You're 32, there's $4,000 sitting in a checking account that pays you nothing, and you keep telling yourself you'll start investing “when things settle down.” Let me tell…
Stock Trading Encyclopedia
What Is a Dividend Yield?
The dividend yield is a stock's annual dividend payment expressed as a percentage of its current share price. If a stock trades at $50 and pays $2.00 a…
Stock Trading Encyclopedia
What Is a Mutual Fund?
A mutual fund is a way for a lot of ordinary people to own a small piece of fifty, or a hundred, or five hundred companies at once,…
Stock Trading Encyclopedia
What Is a Bull Market?
A bull market is a sustained rise of 20% or more from a recent market low, usually accompanied by widespread optimism, rising corporate earnings, and a growing economy.…
Stock Trading Encyclopedia
What Is a Bear Market?
A bear market is a decline of 20% or more from a recent market high, sustained for at least two months. The label is most often applied to…
Risk Management & Psychology
Trading Psychology: Fear and Greed
A client came to see me in March 2009. He was 58, three years from his planned retirement, and he had just sold his entire stock portfolio at…
Stock Trading Encyclopedia
What Are Dividends?
A dividend is a distribution of company profits paid in cash to shareholders. When a business generates more money than it needs to fund operations and reinvestment, the…