Talk about embarrassing: The credit debacle has shown just how dumb and greedy the (supposedly) smart money really is. Bear Stearns, natch, is the poster boy: The 85-year-old investment bank lost about 90 percent of its value in 2008, because, it...

Editor-in-Chief David Geracioti spoke with Krawcheck about a recently announced reorganization in the wealth-management division. Registered Rep.: For a Smith Barney advisor, you guys have had a pretty good year in 2007. Smith Barney revenue...

Back during the Great Buying Panic of the 1990s, when making money in stocks was as easy as putting in a buy order for QQQ, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan was called, The Maestro. Greenspan was considered to be a magician in his nearly 19...

It is a delicious bit of irony that the high-income earners who usually foot a disproportionate share of the federal income-tax bill are also (by definition) precluded from funding a Roth IRA. Therefore, their income-tax rate during retirement may...

With credit markets jittery and the economy on the lip of recession (or in recession, depending upon whom you ask), real estate funds have plummeted. During the 12 months ending in January 2008, the category lost 21 percent. Should investors stay...

Academics have long scorned actively managed mutual funds. Instead of spending money on managers who attempt to beat the market (however that is defined), academics argue, investors should stick with index funds. Lately the index proponents have...

Competing fiercely for the attention of investors, fund companies have brought out a wave of specialized offerings. Many of the choices which include mutual funds and exchange-trade funds focus on hot-sounding industries, or growing areas of the...

Registered Rep.: Why has there been so much buzz about actively managed ETFs? Sonya Morris: The ETF market has grown at a torrid pace in recent years, but the vast majority of individual investors' assets (some $9 trillion) are still in mutual...

Just about everybody and their brother has an opinion about the potential for a recession. Are we headed for one? Are we in one right now? Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan recently weighed in on the matter in a speech, saying that...