Does your financial advisor have a fiduciary responsibility to you? This is one of the most important questions that you should ask anyone that you’re thinking of hiring to manage your money, yet many investors don’t understand just what this means. I hope you'll take a minute to read a Forbes article that explains more about this important concept that every financial woman should understand and embrace. A fiduciary responsibility legally obligates a financial advisor to put a client’s best interest first in making investment decisions for that client. Many investors assume that a … [Read more...]
Is your Financial Advisor Legally Obligated to Your Best Interests?
August 10, 2010 By Leave a Comment
What is Screaming Bargain Now?
July 30, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Financial women are always aware of the big picture when it comes to their managing their money. They notice the overall trends and keep an eye on what is happening. One important aspect of this is having an awareness of interest rates. This is easy, because you see interest rates advertised for credit cards, mortgages and CD’s everywhere. As an overall part of your money management, you want to make sure that you take advantage of trends, including interest rate trends. For example, you wouldn’t want to be paying 10% on a mortgage and earning 3% on extra saved capital. There is a good … [Read more...]
Think Tradeoff’s When Investing
July 27, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Investing your money is about looking at the available options and making a choice. Sometimes this involves making a tradeoff of one type of investment over another. Whenever I'm considering a new investment that will give me more income, I like to weigh the income in dollars from that investment against the risk in the value of the investment to see if it's worth the income. First, consider the potential that an investment has to go down in value based on what it has done in the past, and then compare that risk to the income you’ll be receiving. For example, if the investment has a long … [Read more...]
Forbes Annual Investing Guide
July 1, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Every June Forbes puts out an annual Investing Guide. It is full of good ideas, and I look forward to reading it every year. Yes, I am little behind in reading my copy this year, but that is alright. To be a responsible investor you don’t have to do something involving your money every day, or even every week, if that is not what you want. You decide your level of involvement, and then create a plan that works around the amount of time you know you will really spend. And if you want to read the Forbes Annual Investing Guide a few weeks late like me, that’s ok; have a look for some good … [Read more...]
Take Small Steps to Financial Goals
June 28, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Financial goals are like most other life goals; they are more easily reached by breaking them into bite sized steps. A good example that is in my life right now is the career and college planning that my sons are doing. I ask (beg?) my teen sons to think about their ultimate goal beyond high school and college. In my family, this may look something like working as a commercial designer or writing in the media industry while being able to support a nice lifestyle. I ask the boys to go backwards to see how that accomplishment will look broadly on a monthly, weekly and then daily basis to reach … [Read more...]
7 Fun Ways to Become Involved with Your Investing
June 15, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Recent studies on women and money have shown that we are becoming more involved with investing the household money. Despite this, I regularly talk with women who still completely avoid their wealth management. I think many women want to be more involved with their investments, but they just don’t know where to start. I recommend starting simply by becoming comfortable talking and thinking about your money and where it is invested. Most people, especially women, are still uncomfortable talking about their money. Realize that talking about money doesn’t mean you have to announce your salary … [Read more...]
What Simple Tool Tells You When the Stock Market is Riskier Than Usual?
May 21, 2010 By Leave a Comment
What keeps you gripped in fear about investing? Losing your money! Did you know that there is something called the VIX that actually tells you when the stock market is more or less volatile, or riskier, than usual? How handy could that be? A Seeking Alpha article inspired me to write about a topic that is a little more complex than usual this morning only because of the extremeness of the volatility today. If this interests you, then read more at nestegginvestor.com. This article is for educational purposes only and is not in any way meant to be used as financial advice. … [Read more...]
Feel Secure Around Your Investments
May 20, 2010 By Leave a Comment
The stock market volatility has risen back to the level of May 6, 2010, which is the day that it had that crazy and sudden drop! I was traveling back from visiting a college for my son. My travel definitely has a high correlation with crazy things happening in the stock market! Someone could develop a market indicator called the Camille Gaines travel indicator and make a lot of money. Seriously, an indicator called the VIX measures how volatile the S & P stock market index (SPY) is. During especially volatile times, it makes sense to make sure your risk levels are appropriate for you to … [Read more...]
