Investing Archives

What Affects Stock Price and Makes Prices Move?

Tips and Hints for Your First Stock Market Investment

Everyone knows that the stock market fluctuates frequently and that it increases and decreases sometimes by large amounts. But why do the stock prices change? What are the factors that cause the changes? It’s important to identify the forces that cause this volatility. Here are some of the key reasons why stock prices fluctuate. The Economy When there are changes in the economy it has a direct impact on the stock market. Whether this is a boom or a depression, you’ll see a change in stock prices the moment that this happens. When the conditions are favorable, share prices will be at their peak, whereas when the conditions are unfavorable, you’ll see share prices drop dramatically – something that’s good … Read more

Can I Use a Roth IRA to Pay for College?

by Hank Coleman

Which is better a public or private college?

Whether you have children or grandchildren who are looking to receive a college education in the future, you’ll be considering the ways in which you can effectively and efficiently put money aside to help them pay for college. You can do this in several ways, including utilizing your Roth IRA or setting up a 529 college savings plan. What is a Roth IRA? Before discussing the effectiveness of using a Roth IRA as a means to pay for college, it’s important first to identify exactly what it is. For those who aren’t familiar with this term, a Roth IRA is a type of retirement account that’s tax-free. Any withdrawals made from it when you hit retirement age are also tax-free. … Read more

Investopedia Academy Review – Self-Paced, Online Courses About Investing

by Hank Coleman

If you would like to learn more about personal finance or get a higher rate of return on your investments, then simply reading a book may not be the perfect solution. While books written by experienced authors can be useful, the information eventually becomes outdated, especially in the rapidly-changing world of finance, and there’s no one you can turn to for help if you have questions after you finish reading a chapter. This is part of the reason why Investopedia, the self-proclaimed “largest financial education website in the world”, developed their own academy, complete with dozens of online courses led by highly experienced instructors from the financial industry. As the tech industry continues to transform the financial industry, interactive web … Read more

Top 4 Reasons You Might Want to Sell Mutual Funds You Own

by Hank Coleman

I am a buy and hold investor. I do not like to sell many of my investments. I’m decades away from retiring, and I’m a long-term investor, to say the least. It takes a lot for me to sell mutual funds that I own. But, I have been known to transfer the assets from one mutual fund or mutual fund company to another one based on certain criteria. There are times that it is best to just sell your mutual funds and let them go. Things change. Investing philosophies and goals change. Those are the reason to sell mutual funds. Four Reasons When To Sell Mutual Funds Fund Manger Changes Direction You purchase a mutual fund based on its fund … Read more

Do Your Investments Suffer From Mutual Fund Overlap?

by Hank Coleman

How many mutual funds do you invest in? Do you have several funds spread out between Roth IRAs, or do you invest in several mutual funds through your company’s 401k retirement plan? Do you know which stocks those funds invest in? You may suffer from mutual fund overlap. You may be surprised to learn that many of these mutual funds overlap. There can be a real danger in overlap, and you may not as diversified as you think. What Is Mutual Fund Overlap? When a mutual fund does well, investors pile into the investment. Eventually, you wind up with incredibly large mutual funds. For example, the Fidelity Contra Fund (Ticker Symbol – FCNTX) has over $56 billion in total assets … Read more

Young Investors Hold Too Much Cash in Their Portfolios

by Hank Coleman

A recent survey by MFS Investment Management, the nation’s oldest mutual fund company, found that young investors are staying away from the stock market and holding large cash positions. In fact, the survey shows that the youngest investors, those of Generation Y, are actually increasing their cash positions in their nest eggs while shunning the stock market to a large degree. While it can make young investors have a little better feeling when they try and simply protect their principle, far too many young investors have too much of their portfolio in cash. How Much Cash Is Too Much? The survey by MFS Investment Management found that Generation Y investors, which are defined as young adults who were born in … Read more