From the monthly archives:

October 2008

Mutual Funds

by ABC

Mutual funds are investment funds that are run by a professional portfolio manager.  The portfolio manager uses their knowledge and experience to decide what the best investments are for their mutual fund. There are many types of mutual funds which can invest in different combinations of investments depending on the type of the fund.  All [...]

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Stock Market Index

by ABC

If you follow the news regularly then you have probably heard of the “Dow Jones” index and maybe the “S&P 500” index.  Let’s take a look at what a stock market index is and why you should know about them. An stock market index (or just “index) is a number that measures the relative value [...]

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Bonds

by ABC

Bonds, also known as fixed income, are an investment you can purchase where you essentially lend money to whoever issued the bond in exchange for future income in the form of interest payments.  At the end of the life of the bond, you get your original investment back.  The interest payments and principal (amount of [...]

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Asset Allocation

by ABC

Asset allocation refers to how much of any given asset class you have in your portfolio. An older investor might have a retirement asset allocation of mostly fixed income investments whereas a more aggressive investor might have most of their investments in stocks.  The basic asset classes of stocks, fixed income and good old hard [...]

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Investment Asset Classes

by ABC

An asset class is a grouping of similar investments whose prices tend to move together.  Asset classes can be defined on a very general level, such as stocks or on a more specific level, such as American silver producing companies. The concept of asset classes is important because one of the goals when building an [...]

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401(k) Retirement Plan

by ABC

A 401(k) plan is an investment account type designed to help you invest money for your retirement planning.  These plans are setup through your employer and the contributions will be deducted from your pay check. Any money you contribute to a 401(k) will not have income tax deducted from it, so the money inside a [...]

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Dividends

by ABC

Dividends are payments from a company to all its stock owners. Not all companies pay a dividend and the amount of each dividend is quite variable between companies. Some companies choose to keep all their profits to reinvest in the company and some companies choose to pay out some of those earnings as dividends. Whether [...]

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Fixed Income

by ABC

Fixed income investments are defined as securities that have a regular fixed return associated with them as well as having a guaranteed principal.  This investment asset class is often considered less risky than buying stocks which isn’t always true since some fixed income investments are very risky. A fixed income security is only as good [...]

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Stocks

by ABC

Have you ever heard someone talking about a “hot stock tip” or “playing the markets”?  Were you too embarrassed to admit that you don’t really know what a stock is or how to buy one?  Then keep reading! What is a stock? Stocks are shares in companies. If you buy a share of a company [...]

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