Don't Quit Your Day Job…

Not all of us have surplus money stacked up under our mattresses. But it isn’t very hard to believe that after careful budgeting and hard work we can put away some money for the future. When we finally get to this point some of us see many opportunities and are unsure of what to do with our money. Personal investing can be a very opportunistic option and can pay off greatly if money is put in the right places. We strive to put away money for investing, and then have no idea of what investment opportunities are available and which are the most advantageous. It is important to research different roads we can take before we get to them.

Got cash sitting on the sidelines? It may be time to move some of that cash into play, according to Mark Hulbert writing on Marketwatch.com. “Believe it or not, the stock market performs much better than average when Congress is not in session.”

Congress goes into recess on Friday; this could be your opportunity.

Oftentimes the best place to look for value is in a place few others know to look.

Go ahead and quote that; I just made it up. Closed end funds are an often overlooked place in the market for your investment funds. CEFs are mutual funds which trade on exchanges and lack the price arbitrage functions of Exchange Traded Funds. This means that Closed End Funds can be (and often are) priced significantly differently from their underlying assets.

The way the financial community seems to be covering it, we are currently attending the funeral of Asset Allocation. Long live Asset Allocation!

A common topic on financial pages world wide web wide (a cheer for alliteration?) is about the supposed death of asset allocation. Asset Allocation is the idea that the best retirement play for most investors is to allocate financial resources among a number of investment baskets. Supposedly by spreading one’s investments across a diverse set of asset classes it is possible to catch the hot performance in any corner of the market while absorbing any shocks in other corners. Of course, the uninspiring performance of asset classes during the ‘Great Recession’ seem to throw this theory into question. Read on and decide for yourself if we need to find some pallbearers for this financial heavyweight.

What explains the difference in returns between stocks and bonds?

One theory is that the difference in returns is due to the safety of bonds when consumption declines (the so called ‘risk premium’ is built into stock returns). One of the issues with testing this hypothesis is that the most commonly quoted measure of consumption, the National Income and Product Account, is too nonvolatile to explain the risk premium on its own. Alexi Savov, a grad-student at Chicago, has produced a fascinating look at using residential garbage production in order to take a closer look at the correlation between stock returns and consumption.

Investing in real estate? Too Soon!

Just kidding. Real estate investing is not limited to house ‘flipping’ or becoming a landlord. There are other ways to play real estate – to the downside or the upside. Real estate investing can cover much more than simply buying residential property to rent or resell. Read on for a look at a few of those ‘other’ forms.

Gold, the 79th element in the periodic table, is perhaps the most controversial of any investments. Every investor seems to have an opinion on the metal. Some people, particularly enamored with the constitution, read into it the necessity for the government to only issue gold (and silver) coins.

Regardless of your viewpoint on the legality of fiat currency, perhaps you have decided to invest some of your hard earned funds into the stuff. There are many ways to approach investing in gold; I will lay out a few approaches to gold investing in this article.

Dollar Cost Averaging (DCA) is touted by some financial planners as the solution to all of investing’s problems. By continuing to invest money at a regular interval, you buy more shares when prices are low and more shares when prices are high. Additionally, dollar cost averaging fits the general schedule of how people normally get paid – every two weeks you get your paycheck, and you also automatically invest in your 401(k), for example.

That’s great… for predictable streams of income. This article will *not* try to convince you to stop your normal recurring investments. However, dollar cost averaging meets its match when introduced to a windfall. When you have extra funds, you shouldn’t tiptoe into the market, you should dive right in with a lump sum investment. Don’t believe me? Let me convince you…

Can states default on their debt? The state of California has been in the news recently because of a $24.3 billion gap in funding. Is it possible that we may soon hear of a state actually going ‘bankrupt’? What are the economic and political ramifications if California takes such a step?

However you got it, you’ve got it now. Cash, and a good chunk of it at that. The big question for you now… Where are you going to put it? When you realize the mattress isn’t a good place to stash it, read on for some ideas!