For all of the drawbacks a 401k has as an investment, I still think people should invest in them for two reasons. The first reason is that it’s free money being given to you by the company you work for.  And the free money can be substantial. A typical 401k plan might be something like [...]

Americans now have over $3 trillion in their 401k’s. With that much money involved, you can be sure that’s a rich target for retirement plan providers to charge fees.  And many of these providers are all too happy to do so.  And often they try to hide them, or make them too complicated for investors [...]

“Give them any color they want, as long as it’s black.” Henry Ford One of the major drawbacks to typical 401k’s is the limited choice of investment options. Let’s face it – you are basically given a choice of bond or stock mutual funds, and in the stock mutual funds a choice of value or [...]

Many financial advisers believe that every persons investment portfolio should contain at least some gold holdings.  I’ve seen recommendations ranging from 5% to 25%, and even higher. So why do so many advisers believe this? Because gold has consistently over time held up it’s purchasing power.  So while gold’s price has certainly fluctuated, it’s purchasing [...]

In reviewing a friends 401k the other day, I noticed yet another thing about 401k’s that bothers me.  That is a lack of transparency in what they were invested in. The company had moved it’s existing investment choices to something called Collective Investment Funds (CIF).  As they said in the employee material, a CIF is [...]

I recently was asked by a friend to evaluate their 401k investment plan.  This exercise just reinforced my view that 401k’s leave a lot to be desired and are blunt investment options. Essentially, many of them require you to be invested in bonds or stocks or both, with no other choice.  This leaves out the [...]

I was reviewing a friend’s 401k the other day at their request.  And I was struck, yet again, with the investment shortcomings of 401k plans. I always come away from a review like this with the feeling that 401k’s are blunt instruments.  They fall short for investors in a number of ways.  Here are some [...]

I recently sold a great gold mining stock at a 125% gain because I wanted to find a better gold stock that paid dividends.  I settled on Newmont Mining Corp (NEM) because it was well established company and paid in excess of 3%. The stock was well priced at $43.34 a share and I could [...]

Here’s how the Newmont (NEM) Gold trade is working out. You’ll recall that I sold a gold stock for 125% gain because it wasn’t paying a dividend.  And I looked for another gold stock that was paying a dividend, and finally chose Newmont Mining Corp because it was a well established company and paid over [...]

I just sold a terrific high yield bond fund I’ve been invested in for a few years. Why do I say it was terrific?  Because based on my original purchase price, it was paying me a handsome 8.3 % dividend.  And the dividends came out every month just like clockwork.  Also, I sold it for [...]