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Capital Gains for Stock Sales
Capital gains represent the difference between the purchase price and the sales price of capital assets. Capital gains apply to a number of assets including: stocks, mutual funds, Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs), bonds, real estate, cryptocurrencies, stamp and coin collections, precious metals, artwork and so forth. (More specifically, if the sales price exceeds the purchase […]
Cryptocurrency – Maybe Not
No doubt you’ve heard of cryptocurrency. A common example of it is Bitcoin which we discussed in a previous article. You may be tempted to invest in this area due to some of the amazing gains reported. I want to provide a little background on this and then explain why I don’t recommend putting your […]
Inflation & Higher Interest Rates
As you know, inflation has been generally on the rise. Inflation simply means an increase in what we have to pay for goods and services. We feel it at the gas pump, in the grocery store and when we try to finance a major purchase like a new home. The rate of inflation was at […]
Saving vs. Investing
Many of the things we’d like out of life require the accumulation of wealth over time. Our first home, a new car, college for the kids, money to use should we lose our job and planning for retirement are common examples. There are two high-level approaches to collecting enough wealth to meet such needs. These […]
Commission-Free Investments
You may know that Guidepost Financial Planning uses TD Ameritrade as its broker. They execute your trades, hold your securities and provide insurance on your investments. They’ve always been a low-cost brokerage house, but a couple of weeks ago they eliminated base commissions for online exchange-listed U.S. stock, ETF (domestic and Canadian), and option trades—moving […]
Where to Keep Cash?
We should all have some very liquid assets (cash-like investments) to pay bills and to allow us to pay for life’s inevitable surprises (auto work, appliance repairs, etc.). Often we keep these funds in a checking or a savings account. This is absolutely the right approach for money that we know we’ll need in the […]
Investing in Gold
There are two schools of thought on investing in gold. Those who like the idea say that it is a hedge against inflation, a safe haven in a calamitous world and that it offers protection against a weakening dollar. The most famous advocate against investing in gold is Warren Buffett. His basic grievance is that […]
Yield Curves
Yield curves are simply graphs of the interest rates of bonds with different maturities versus time. A commonly cited example is the yield curve for U.S. government securities. The rate for 3-month, 2-year, 5-year, 10-year and 30-year treasury securities are plotted on the vertical axis and the maturity period is graphed on the horizontal axis. […]
Inflation
I’m pretty sure every reader has a pretty good understanding of inflation. In general terms, things cost more as inflation rises so that a fixed amount of money buys fewer things. And from an investment point of view, a portfolio worth a certain amount of money will buy less as inflation rises. Inflation is measured […]
The Bitcoin Bubble
If I say the 2000 dot-com bubble or the 2007 housing bubble, you immediately have a pretty good idea what a bubble is. Basically it’s when the price of some asset strongly exceeds the asset’s intrinsic value. The first recorded asset bubble occurred in the 1600s when the price of Dutch tulip bulbs went through […]