I don’t often write this sort of advice, but here’s my household risk management recommendation for the Fall: get your flu shots. Read the full article ... Read the full post ... Read more

The Federal Reserve’s latest “beige book” report offers a few encouragements on the state of the New England economy. The most recent update from the twelve Federal Reserve banks, released today, suggests that economic activity has been stabilizing in most parts of the US.  In the F ... Read more

Each year, contribution limits on 401(k)s, IRAs and other retirement plans are adjusted to keep up with inflation. However, because of a quirk in the rules that define how limits on 401(k) and pension plan contributions are calculated, it’s possible that 2010 limits on these plans could actu ... Read more

About 50 million people own 401(k)-type retirement plans, and the percentage of workers with defined-benefit (pension) plans has been dwindling for years. One problem with 401(k) plans is that many plans don’t disclose their fees openly. That would change if Congress moves forward with a bil ... Read more

SIMPLE IRA plans give small employers an easy way to make employer matching contributions to an employee's retirement plan. The administration of these plans is much simpler for employers than most other retirement plans, but SIMPLE IRAs involve twists and turns that can be confusing for the emplo ... Read more

A number of behavioral finance studies have shown that men tend to take greater levels of investment risk than women. Researchers at the University of Chicago and Northwestern University have added to these observations with new evidence that high testosterone levels are associated with risky inv ... Read more

Announcements of new exchange-traded funds arrive in my e-mailbox almost daily, but today’s seemed ironically timed: a new inverse ETF tied to the performance of twenty-year Treasuries. Read the full article ... Read the full post ... Read more

The coming change in Roth IRA conversion rules has been discussed (seemingly) endlessly in the financial planning community, especially lately. What follows is a short summary of how the conversion laws will change. In future posts, I'll write more about the considerations that should go into a Ro ... Read more

The SEC issued a joint warning with FINRA today about the risks of leveraged and inverse ETFs for retail investors. Read the full article ... Read the full post ... Read more

Yesterday the Bureau of Labor Standards provided a CPI update through July 2009. Prices seem to be firming, but no clear pattern has yet emerged. Read the full article ... Read the full post ... Read more