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Resurrecting a Retirement Portfolio — Good Advice and A Warm Glass of Milk

Has your retirement portfolio – or lack there of- got you up at night? If so, consider reading an excellent round-up article by Jan Rosen of the New York Times ‘Now Is A Perfect Time to Reconstruct A Nest Egg‘ that provides an excellent primer on IRA investing. Even though many investors have been hit [...]

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Trusting Yourself With Buy and Hold Investing

Jason Zweig of the Wall Street Journal recently wrote an article ‘Will We Ever Again Trust Wall Street?’ that brilliantly steers one to consider employing a buy and hold investment strategy over an actively managed portfolio.  “Buying and holding a diversified stock portfolio still makes sense. Paradoxically, as fewer people cling to their faith in [...]

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Investing for Beginners: Avoid the Tempting Scams

Investing for beginners, as well as those more financially savvy, can oftentimes be a daunting task as there are many investment choices and unfortunately many schemes making promises that can’t be kept. As recently exposed in an article in InvestorsInsight.com ‘Record Year For Ponzi Schemes’ investors are oftentimes lured in by investment schemes that are just ‘too good to be true’. “It’s [...]

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Asset Allocation vs. Tactical Allocation – Know the Difference

Asset Allocation is being mistaken form tactical allocation. “It’s the financial fantasy for a post-crash world: Wouldn’t life be grand if you could own one mutual fund that invested in domestic and foreign stocks, bonds, cash, real estate, commodities and currencies, freely shifting investments among categories to take advantage of opportunities, and avoid meltdowns?” Well, [...]

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ETF Portfolios: Is it time to invest in banks? Look at PJB

With President Obama at the helm it seems as though the light might be shining on the economic horizon. If you’re of this opinion then now might be a good time to invest some of your hard earned savings in the banking industry. But what bank do you buy?  Rather than selecting just one bank, [...]

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Sector ETFs: Build a Strong Foundation with XHB

The homebuilder’s market has been hit pretty hard in the last 2 years by the resounding pop of the housing market, but at some point, they’re due for a turn of fortune. If you’re a strong believer in the recovery of the housing market and feel that the future for homebuilders appears bright, or at [...]

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Sector ETF Portfolios: Invest in the Necessities of Life with XLP

Word is that retailers will be having a very cold holiday season this year; in fact MasterCard has noted that sales of apparel, shoes and appliances dropped considerably in the first two weeks of November. Consumers are being a little thriftier when it comes to extras as they’re worried about unemployment and the recent news [...]

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Sector ETFs: Energize your portfolio with XLU

With the shift of power in the United States one of the hot topics is obviously America’s dependence on oil and fuel consumption. During the coming administration we’re likely to see a change in the energy field as new options are sought. It’s likely that there will be some newcomers to the industry, but most [...]

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Retail Rally? Open the Door with RTH – A Sector ETF

This holiday season retailers are gearing up for one of the worst years yet. They’ve read the news and know that unemployment is up, people are putting off large purchases, and we’re in the midst of a financial crisis. These unfortunate facts are not only reflected in most retail store’s bottom lines, but also in [...]

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ETF Portfolios: Go Nuclear with NLR

While the world is seeking out alternative energy sources, nuclear energy is gaining some steam. Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister, Hossein Sheikholeslam, recently said that his country needs nuclear energy as a substitute for its oil resources. He is quoted as saying that, “Iran will have oil for over 100 years, but once its energy resources [...]

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