Is Crowdfunding Safe for Investors?

Is Crowdfunding Safe for Investors?

The success of Twitter’s recent IPO was the culmination of a simplified IPO process aimed at making it easier for smaller companies to raise capital. Under the JOBS Act of 2012 a so-called Emerging Growth Company would be allowed to do the following: Submit a draft registration statement to the SEC for confidential nonpublic review…
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What Is Your Risk Tolerance?

If you have an investment account at a brokerage firm, chances are you’ve encountered a risk tolerance questionnaire.  Such a document purports to determine how comfortable you are with investment risk.  Questions range from the simple – “Are you investing primarily for income or for growth?” – to the sublime – “If you are offered…
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Should You Increase Equity Allocation in Retirement?

Conventional wisdom has it that young investors should allocate a large portion of their savings to stocks – a high return, high risk asset class – when they first start investing their savings, and then slowly reduce their stock allocation as they approach and then surpass retirement age.  By the time they reach their eighties,…
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Five End-of-Year Tax Tips

Since we’re approaching the end of another fiscal year, this is a good time to start developing your tax strategies.  Here are five tips to consider. Try to avoid selling investments that you have held for less than one year.  The gains on such investments are taxed at the short-term capital gains tax rate, which…
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The Time to Plan Is When It’s Not Needed

I received a call last year from a woman who’d sounded desperate.  “I was just offered an early-retirement package from my company,” she’d said, the words rushed from anxiety, “and I’ve got two weeks to make a decision.  Can you help me?”  I had groaned inwardly, imagining the late nights ahead struggling to collect the…
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Which Are Better: Mutual Funds or ETFs?

You’re probably familiar with mutual funds. They are arguably the most common type of investment choice for 401(k) and other retirement accounts. Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs), by contrast, have only been around since the early 1990s, and have not yet found their way into very many retirement plan menus. But they are widely available for…
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