For almost a year now, the financial media has been talking about all the real and imagined 'what-ifs” that can occur when the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee actually begins to move interest rates higher after over 30 years of the (mostly) oppo

I recently took the opportunity to visit and spend time in and around Williston, N.D., to see the future being made. While my original intent was simply to visit, what I saw going on there and the impressions it made upon me have led me to write this piec

It's been my experience over my career that people often will spend more time and effort planning for their annual two-week vacation than they will a 30-plus year retirement. My goal with this article is to help you consider parts of the proverbial bigg

For more than a generation, when considering what to do with their investments, one of the primary beliefs of investors has been that bonds are safe, that the risk of losing your investment in owning them-whether individually or within fund portfolios o

Reasonable people can disagree. I've learned that this truism is what, ultimately, drives markets. Otherwise, why would we have sellers and buyers? If they all thought one price was good for everything, I'd say my job would be right up there with wat

It was a day on which very little else seemed to happen, but 20 years ago, Dec. 8, 1994, we had the start of the huge bull market run that lasted until 2001.

After a weak start to 2014, the U.S. dollar muscled its way higher this summer, and the gains look as if they may be continuing. Investors from all over have been eagerly jumping into the U.S. markets. The strengthening dollar has been remaking the inves

If you've ever gone on a cruise or been aboard a vessel that's going to be out at sea for a while, you'll be familiar with this process. It's basically done so that, if the situation calls for it, all the passengers will know what to do, how to do

For the last 30-plus years, it hasn't particularly mattered whether you owned bond funds or individual bonds. Helped by falling interest rates, they both delivered consistent income and a counterbalance to stock market volatility. But, with higher rate

By the time this piece is published, it shall have been about a month since Michael Lewis went on 60 Minutes to flog his latest Wall Street-oriented book. This one is called 'Flash Boys.” The boys, in this case, are those who oversee and administer th