I recently had the opportunity to watch a video of couples talking about retirement, which, for them, was about ten years away. The couples were broken into three self-described categories: fully prepared, somewhat prepared, and not prepared. At the end …

I remember one of my colleagues observed that many investors don’t really have portfolios—they have “collections” of securities. He meant that their accounts had been assembled piecemeal over time, with a brother-in-law’s recommendation here and a newsletter recommendation there. In …

Back-to-school commercials have quickly replaced those featuring summer getaways. For those about to head off to college for the first time, returning to school is taking on an entirely new dimension.…

Performance drives many of the decisions we make as consumers. What kind of gas mileage will I get? How big a load of clothes can the washing machine handle? How long will this roof last? For many of these kinds …

I recently wrote about the connection among Mother’s Day, Teacher Appreciation Week, and how my mother “taught” me to become financially literate. In this post I’d like to acknowledge teachers—and the role they can play in teaching financial literacy—more directly.…

The timing of Teacher Appreciation Week (May 7–11) and Mother’s Day (May 13) got me to thinking about what my mom taught me about finance. While mothers may not be teachers in the official sense, they play an important role …

I remember first being introduced to the concept of market efficiency during business school. At the time, I was working for a large Wall Street firm in close proximity to the equity trading floor. As I thought about the precision …

Many of my fellow bloggers have written about the recent turmoil in the markets. Rather than add my two cents to what has already been very well articulated, I’d like to take a different angle.

Have you noticed anything different …

Many of us do a pretty good job of getting insurance on all the usual suspects: homes, health, cars, life. But I recently came to think about another kind of insurance—what we should do to help our loved ones prepare …

I hate buying cars. Even though I’ve had the good fortune to not have it be a frequent experience, when the time comes for another car, I cringe at the prospect.

The worst was when a car dealer wouldn’t give …