INVESTMENT ACCOUNTS » Investing Money

Treasury bond rates are increasing as the Fed attempts to stimulate the economy with multi-billion dollar bond buys. Unfortunately, ever since its decision to take part in the stimulative quantitative easing program, which involves buying $600 billion worth of Treasury bonds, investors have been pushed toward stocks.

Why the Fed is Buying Bonds

There’s nothing more amazing then watching celebrities who died years or even decades ago continue to earn money. If we could only do half in life of what they do in death, we could be millionaires! Of course, for most, it was the financial choices made before they died that helped to keep them rich after they’ve passed on.

Let’s explore what you could do to keep earning money even after you no longer need it just like them:

Employers offering 401(k) accounts with “target date” mutual funds may soon have to abide by a newly proposed rule that would require them to provide more information to their employees. Currently, the specifics of these mutual funds, including the mix of investments used, are not disclosed. But if the proposed rule becomes official, employers will have more work ahead of them in making the funds more transparent.

What are Target Date Mutual Funds?

Finance.Yahoo.com

If you’ve ever wanted to learn about the stock market but didn’t know where to begin, one of the best tools to use is Yahoo! Finance. It may be a bit overwhelming at first, given that the plethora of financial information available can make your brain hurt. Yet, after a few visits, you should be able to work your way around the site to look up stock information and financial news with relative ease.

Two of the biggest financial goals in most people’s lives is purchasing a home and saving for retirement. So why not kill two birds with one stone by using your home equity to double as your retirement fund? Saving for a house or a comfortable retirement can be hard enough as it is, let alone having to do both, but if you’re willing to incorporate a little home downsizing in your retirement plan, you can have your cake and then sell it to fund your golden years too. However, just because you could do it, doesn’t necessarily mean you should do it.

Using Home Equity to Fund Retirement

What is it about Harry Potter that makes preteen girls and grown men alike squeal with delight when a new book or movie is released? Maybe it’s the adventurous plots or just a really aggressive marketing plan, but I think it has a lot to do with the powerful insight Rowling’s characters share through their dialogue, both in print and onscreen.

Take Dumbledore–he’s meant to be a source of wisdom and guidance for the Hogwarts kids, yet his words often transcend the realm of wizardry and magic to be just as applicable to our reality as well. Apparently, this character has some pretty good investment advice, too.

What do Woody Allen and personal finance have to do with each other, you ask? Maybe not a whole lot, but if we dissect his films closely, there are definitely lessons to be learned.

The over opinionated Woody Allen is constantly placing social criticisms, personal quips, and when examined closely, financial advice into his movies. By extracting these gems from across the span of his films and bringing them together, we can gain insight into some valuable tips on spending, saving and more.

Love this infographic? Click to see all of our recent infographics.

Thomas J. Feeney has been in the investment industry for over four decades. As the chief investment officer of both Marathon Asset Management Co. and Mission Management & Trust Co., there isn’t much of the financial world he hasn’t seen. As much as his schedule allows, he also breaks down his thoughts and strategies on his blog, Measure of Value.

Every other week, we’ll tap the insights of Tom to get a deeper perspective of what’s going on in the market and see through his eyes what the smart money is thinking about investments.

It seems that banks are making a habit of using their free capital to lend money to the government via bond buys, which means that business and personal loans are not being distributed. Fed Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is not happy about this action because it means credit is not being extended when it could. But he believes new global banking rules could turn things around.

Banks Take Advantage of Low Interest Rates

The best mutual funds in the U.S. were highlighted by Standard & Poor’s on Monday with its first U.S. Mutual Funds Excellence Awards Program. The idea of the program was to find value in domestic funds, which are becoming less popular since many investors of mutual funds are looking overseas to make investments.

Criteria for Program