Investment

If there is safety in numbers and comfort in size, fund investors are now putting their need for reassurance on parade. The growth-stock fund companies that raked in the bulk of new dollars in the late 1990s (Janus, Putnam Investments and Alliance...

Heard the one about what a redneck divorce and a tornado hold in common? (One way or another, someone's losing a trailer.) Or maybe you've run across one of those humorous trailer trash tests featuring questions like, If your front porch were to...

Soft dollars is a heavily debated topic these days, particularly among the fund managers who shoulder the commissions load. A new study from The Journal of Portfolio Management asked chief investment officers at 72 asset management firms what they...

In the late 1990s, academic researchers began noticing an interesting but disturbing side effect of the roaring bull market: 401(k) investors consolidating their investment positions. Specifically, instead of diversifying their portfolios, many...

Ordinarily, the phrase in the tank is one that makes investors cringe, but this time around might prove an exception. Tankers, those giant ships that haul everything from oil to iron ore, are in high demand, which means they're likely to have...

How can you build the ideal portfolio? For many advisors, the answer can be summed up in one word: Markowitz. In the 1950s, Harry Markowitz changed the financial world by describing how diversification could help investors control risk and achieve...

Rarely will you find a more obvious-sounding investing tip than this: Those seeking growth opportunities should look to agriculture. One of farming's most vocal cheerleaders is Merrill Lynch analyst Donald Carson, who notes global agricultural...

It's repeated so often it has almost become a financial planner's mantra: Over 20 years, stocks always beat bonds. Look back on history, the refrain continues, and you'll see, the pattern has held true generation after generation. It's time to...

Problem: Americans are big and fat. We also are a pragmatic people who worship expediency hence the popularity of using pills to treat health problems like high blood pressure and high cholesterol. That pill fixation also applies to weight control...

When the Federal Reserve signals an imminent rate rise, the news is traditionally greeted like a general alarm in the high-yield bond markets: Get out while you can! Run for your lives! But there are many who believe that a knee-jerk response...