The Financial Crisis: Can the American Dream Turn into a Nightmare?

The Financial Crisis: Can the American Dream Turn into a Nightmare?

Homeownership has often been called the epitome of the American Dream. When I bought my first house at the ripe old age of 23 I remember going to it after the closing and quietly walking around the yard telling myself, “This is my land, it’s my land.” In the previous decade there were a lot…
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The Shaking of the Rattlesnake’s Tail?

For years, analysts have been predicting the collapse of the 30 year bond rally. Since 1982, bond prices have generally be rising at a rate without near-term historical precedent. In early 2009, it was widely thought that it was the end of the bond price rally as Treasury rates were pushed to historical lows (yields…
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All Aboard! Another Day, Another Call to all Lemmings

Today, as I write this at 10:30am Denver time, the stock market is in hefty selloff. However, truth be told, the past few years it has been normal to see the S&P 500 move more than 1% in a day. With each decline we all wonder if this is the first decline off the recent…
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How to Figure Out Net Yield on a Municipal and US Treasury Bonds

When investing in municipal bonds, it’s important to keep in mind that the yields are generally not an across the board comparison to CD yields or US Treasury yields. Let’s go through how each investment is taxed: CD Yields = Taxable at both the state and federal level US Treasury Yields = Taxable at the…
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How to Figure Out the Net Yield on a CD (after Taxes and Inflation)

With investing, it’s always important to get an apples for apples comparison so that everything is on a levelized playing field. Most of the time we look at interest rates and yield before taxes are taken out of them. If you open up a newspaper and see an advertised CD rate at 2.00% this is…
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Only Twice in US Financial History

Halley’s Comet visits earth every 76 years. For the average person, this is a once in a life time event. Right now there is an event in the financial world that hasn’t happened since 1861 just over 150 years ago. In 2011, we completed a thirty year period in which bonds outperformed stocks. This is…
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6 Common Risk Statistics on an Investment

When you look up an investment, often it’s published with the six risk statistics: Alpha, Beta, Mean Annual Return (or just “Mean”), Standard Deviation, Sharpe Ratio, and R-Squared. It’s important to look at both performance and risk. If you see an investment that outperformed the S&P 500, it can be easy to get excited, but…
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How to Keep Yourself from Being Destroyed by an Asteroid

Recently there was a special on TV about the various meteors that NASA has tracked. You may be relieved to know that all the major asteroids have been identified and we should not expect a large collision in the next few decades. The question was then posed, “If there was a large Armageddon-like asteroid heading…
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Bizarre Trends in Medicine for Baby Boomers

I love to talk about longevity. I think it’s very fascinating to think about and crucial for me to help people plan for. For ages. humans have scrambled to avert their own mortality. Whether it was the Fountain of Youth or the Holy Grail people have sacrificed their lives to extend them. If you asked…
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Stocks: A Tale of Two Prices

Recently the Dow Jones Industrial Average has made headlines as it crossed the 13,000 mark for the first time since 2008. It crossed 13,000 for the first time in April 2007 on its way up, again in January 2008 on its way down, touched above it in May 2008 (in a post Bear Stearns false…
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