Skipping College? A 529 Plan Can Still Help

Skipping College? A 529 Plan Can Still Help

If you’re a parent of a teenager in their sophomore or junior year in high school, you’ve probably discussed with them your hope that they will be going to college. While it’s true that jobs requiring a college degree do tend to pay more than those that don’t, not everyone has the wherewithal to become…
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Remember Meme Stocks? Where Are They Now?

The year 2021 might be remembered as the year of the incautious investor. Non-fungible tokens (NFT) and Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPAC) were all the rage, bitcoin ETFs were on the verge of breaking out, and everyone was buzzing about the unexpected price surges of GameStop and AMC Theaters, the two so-called meme stocks. In…
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The Two Most Effective Ways To Avoid Being Hacked

It’s virtually impossible to go about our daily lives these days without doing things online in some fashion. Buying stuff, connecting with others, making travel plans; these are just a few of the many activities that the Internet has made both ubiquitous, simple, and quick. But with convenience comes risk. The downside is that if…
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You’re Only As Wealthy As You Feel

There’s an old song by the Jefferson Airplane that goes “You’re only [as] pretty as you feel.” Perhaps the same can be said about wealth. So much so that brokerage firm Charles Schwab commissions an annual study of 2,200 Americans regarding their beliefs about their wealth. There are some interesting findings from the recently released…
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Should You Dollar Hedge Your Foreign Bonds?

A well-diversified investment portfolio should at least include bonds as well as stocks. And in the case of bonds, you will discover that there are more sub-asset classes than there are for stocks. Today I’m focusing on bonds issued by foreign governments. One of the challenges with those kinds of bonds is that as a…
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Has The U.S. Ever Defaulted On Its Debt?

U.S. Treasuries have been considered the safest debt on the planet ever since the end of World War II. But they are backed only by the “full faith & credit” of the U.S. government. Despite the two major political parties squabbling every couple of years over raising the debt ceiling in order to pass a…
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