This week, I had the distinct pleasure of participating in the Institute for the Fiduciary Standard’s “Campaign for Investors” launch. As a staunch supporter of retirement industry reform and fee transparency, I was invited to speak on panel at the event where I met with like-minded financial thought leaders, who supported the Labor Department’s new measures to make retirement… Continue reading →

John Bogle, the longtime champion of low-cost investing and founder of the Vanguard Group, is not one to rest on his laurels. You would think that the recent Department of Labor “clients first” fiduciary standard ruling — earned after decades of fighting an investment industry focused on profits over people — would qualify as a big win. Don’t get me wrong, it… Continue reading →

Recently, I spoke to Silvia Ascarelli at the Wall Street Journal about my understandable skepticism to the new trend of mutual funds coined “smart beta.” Continue reading →

The “tyranny of compounding costs” is hardly a headline anyone wants to read. Yet people truly need to understand what Vanguard Founder John Bogle means when he says that cost is the major driver in how long-term retirement investing turns out. Most people assume that picking the investments matters. And in a sense it does.… Continue reading →

If you’re like most investors, you likely believe that stockbrokers with checkered pasts get drummed out of the industry. Certainly, out-of-work stockbrokers would like you to believe that. But the data tells a different story: Of brokers fired for misconduct, 44% are back at work within a year. That’s the conclusion of researchers at the… Continue reading →

If you spend enough time watching cable TV or reading the investing advice online, it can seem that the key to making money in the stock market is to buy the right investment, ride it higher, then sell before everyone else bails out. Yet the science behind portfolio investing — yes, actual data, collected by actual… Continue reading →

It’s gospel in some circles that government is the problem, not the solution. Yet it is possible, even today, to find clear examples of political leadership coming together to get something right. That happened just this past month with the announcement by the Department of Labor of a rule that will make retirement investment safer and more transparent for millions… Continue reading →

A professor at the University of Chicago, Harold Pollack, made a big splash recently with a pretty simple idea: What if all you needed to know about personal finance could fit on a single index card. Not reams of stock charts. Not years of study in some business school. Not even a book from the… Continue reading →

Yes, it’s the last possible moment, but you do have until Monday, April 18 to file taxes and that means you have until then to contribute to your retirement and still save on your 2015 taxes. Contrary to what you might have heard, there are tax breaks for just about every income level. The question… Continue reading →