A key role of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is to protect the public not only from fraudulent investments but also from misunderstanding the risk associated with otherwise legal ones. The Securities Act of 1933 promulgated the initial rules that publicly traded securities were required to follow in order to help ensure their investment…
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After a big market downturn, when things have settled down and volatility has moderated to something resembling normal, you may find yourself holding numerous investments whose current values are well below the amounts you had originally paid for them. Your inclination might be to hold on to them until their values come back to at…
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Probably everyone these days knows who Bernie Madoff is. He “made off” (pun intended) with about $50 billion by scamming at least 5,000 people. Unfortunately there are many other unscrupulous financial professionals who, because their chicanery is on a much smaller scale, tend to fly under the regulatory scrutiny radar. And when their fraudulent activity…
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If you owned Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and Google at the beginning of this year you would be holding the four most valuable stocks in the entire U.S. stock market based on market capitalization (the stock’s price times the number of shares outstanding). Facebook clocked in at number six. Out of some 3,500 companies comprising the…
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Mark Twain popularized the phrase “there are lies, damned lies, and statistics.” There is some validity to that statement when it comes to investing. All data reported in the financial media and promoted by investment salespeople is of necessity historical in nature. After all, if you’re trying to recommend an investment, the only data that…
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In addition to investing in stocks and bonds, there are also ways you can invest in commodities. These are raw materials that are either consumed directly or more commonly used by manufacturers to create other products. Examples include metals such as gold, silver, aluminum, and copper; energy raw materials such as oil and natural gas;…
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