InvestorGeeks

The Money Market and you

by Frank

A week or so ago I wrote an article about the Money Market. As I mentioned then I’ll be in an out of it for awhile. After looking back at that article I’ve realized that even though I posted something, it wasn’t of any value, and was confusing at best. Rather than edit the original article and erase any trace of my mistakes, I’d rather leave it as is and take a second shot at it. (more…)

How to Get Started: The Basics

by Chris

In my last article, I discussed starting my portfolio, and a strategy for allocating assets efficiently while keeping the number of accounts and fees manageable. As I stated in that article I think it’s very important for those of us who want to eventually become more involved with individual stock investing to have only a small portion of our funds in a brokerage account. Because we’re very inexperienced, risking too much of our portfolio with individual stocks can leave us open to a lot of unnecessary risk. That’s why I advocate starting simply by learning the basics then building a foundation of a few stock and bond mutual funds, before allocating more to individual stocks.

This strategy may not be exciting, but to paraphrase Ben Graham, author of The Intelligent Investor, true investing should be boring. By learning the basics we can understand the full range of investments available and how to maximize their returns. We can then invest in relatively safe but consistently well-performing mutual funds. Not only do mutual funds provide instant diversification, but they also give us focus as we continue to learn about more advanced investing topics. As I will mention again, we have a lot to worry about when we’re just starting out. There’s no need to add risky investments to that list before we’re ready.

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S&P 500 Index Funds

by Chris

As part of my forthcoming portfolio strategy, I was trying to find information on the best S&P 500 Index funds. As you may or may not be aware, Vanguard created the first S&P 500 index fund in the 1970’s. An S&P 500 index fund aims at tracking the performance of the S&P 500, regarded as one of the best (if not the best) total market indexes out there. (more…)