by Michele Cagan | Dec 14, 2016 | Personal Finance, Saving and Investing
Hedge funds and investing firms may make millions on seismic shifts in stock prices that a single tweet from President-elect Trump can cause. But regular people like us – we tend to lose out when we buy or sell stocks based on fear, hope, or media hype. The big...
by Michele Cagan | Nov 30, 2016 | You Need to Know This
There’s a lot of talk about blind trusts in the news, along with a lot of conflicting and incorrect information. So here’s how a real deal blind trust works. First piece of business: A trust is just an arrangement where one person manages assets (like money and...
by Michele Cagan | Nov 27, 2016 | Do Your Own Taxes, Personal Finance
No one wants to get audited – and most people don’t. But if you really want to avoid unwanted attention from IRS auditors, you need to know about these 11 red flags in your tax return that may spark their interest. Making more than $200,000 a year: IRS statistics show...
by Michele Cagan | Nov 27, 2016 | Personal Finance, Retirement Planning, Saving and Investing
Like all investments, investing in bonds carries a degree of risk. In fact, there some risks that relate specifically to bonds: Credit risk Interest rate risk Income risk Call risk Credit risk refers to the chance that the bond issuer will default, and you’ll lose...
by Michele Cagan | Nov 27, 2016 | Personal Finance, Retirement Planning, Saving and Investing
Talk to most any financial planner, and within the first five minutes he’ll mention diversification, then keep going. Most people expect he means something like “don’t put all of your money into one stock,” which is good advice … but incomplete. Diversification does...