If you think money managers are overpaid, imagine how much they’d charge if they actually beat the market.
“JOURNALISM is printing what someone else does not want printed. Everything else is public relations.” It’s a quote that should be framed on the wall of every newsroom.
Of course, every journalist knows this. We call PR—public relations—the dark side. But most of us journalists stray into it far more often than we like to admit.
As a reporter, I cut my teeth at a group of regional newspapers in a prosperous part of England in 1989.
MY ELDERLY mother’s credit card was recently compromised. This required her to move all her automatic payments to a new credit card.
That, in turn, prompted her to reevaluate these various charges. Her cable bill, for instance, had gone up more than 15% over the past two years. My mother complained that, while she gets many channels, she only watches broadcast TV. She dropped the cable package.
As she added the autopay information to her new credit card,
IN DECEMBER 1954, 23-year-old John Neff hitchhiked from Ohio to New York in search of work. A Navy veteran, Neff had recently graduated college near the top of his class, with a degree in finance. His hope: to land a job as a stockbroker. But despite these qualifications, Neff was turned down. Why? According to a biographer, the brokerage firm felt “his voice didn’t carry enough authority.”
It didn’t take long for Neff to recover from this setback.
DECIDING WHETHER to buy bonds or pay down the mortgage used to be a tricky decision. Not anymore: Paying extra on your home loan will almost always be the right choice.
This takes some explaining—because it involves wrapping your head around the standard vs. itemized deduction, investment taxes, and a mortgage’s shifting mix of principal and interest.
First, let’s dispense with the obvious objection: Yes, if you’re inclined to buy stocks rather than pay down the mortgage,
MUCH CRITICISM is leveled against millennials, often defined as those born between 1981 and 1996. The criticism is frequently directed at their money and career decisions, including their purportedly foolish spending, excessive borrowing, job-hopping, self-absorption and sense of entitlement.
The perception is so pervasive that even millennials buy into this view of themselves.
But I wouldn’t be too quick to criticize millennials or compare them unfavorably to older generations. Each generation confronts its own unique challenges and difficulties,
IT CAN BE HARD to find time to make healthy meals, plus—with the convenience of fast food restaurants—why bother? It’s way easier to enter the drive-through at the local burger joint than it is to scramble together ingredients at home and make a healthier version.
But these decisions come at a cost, financial and otherwise. Most fast foods are loaded with sodium and calories, while lacking the nutrients you need for optimum health. This can lead to weight gain,
FOR PURCHASES under $10, 49% of U.S. adults typically use cash, 35% use a debit card and just 16% use a credit card, according to a CreditCards.com survey.
NO. 64: AS WE GROW wealthier, we should seize the chance to save on insurance—by raising deductibles, lengthening elimination periods and perhaps dropping some policies entirely.
NO. 108: OUR HUNTER-gatherer instincts tell us to consume right away—and not save for the future. What to do? We might automate our regular savings. We should visualize our goals, so they seem more alluring than today’s spending. We might share our financial ambitions with others, so fear of their disapproval prods us to act.
GET SPENDING money out of stocks. Calculate how much cash you’ll need from your portfolio over the next five years. That money should be out of stocks and invested in nothing more volatile than high-quality short-term bonds. You don’t want to be forced to sell shares at depressed prices—and that could happen if your time horizon is less than five years.
BETA AND ALPHA. Beta measures an investment’s volatility relative to a benchmark index. If the investment has a positive alpha, it means it outperformed the index on a risk-adjusted basis, with that risk measured by beta. For instance, a mutual fund could trail the market averages, but still have a positive alpha if its performance wasn’t especially volatile.
“JOURNALISM is printing what someone else does not want printed. Everything else is public relations.” It’s a quote that should be framed on the wall of every newsroom.
Of course, every journalist knows this. We call PR—public relations—the dark side. But most of us journalists stray into it far more often than we like to admit.
As a reporter, I cut my teeth at a group of regional newspapers in a prosperous part of England in 1989.
MY ELDERLY mother’s credit card was recently compromised. This required her to move all her automatic payments to a new credit card.
That, in turn, prompted her to reevaluate these various charges. Her cable bill, for instance, had gone up more than 15% over the past two years. My mother complained that, while she gets many channels, she only watches broadcast TV. She dropped the cable package.
As she added the autopay information to her new credit card,
IN DECEMBER 1954, 23-year-old John Neff hitchhiked from Ohio to New York in search of work. A Navy veteran, Neff had recently graduated college near the top of his class, with a degree in finance. His hope: to land a job as a stockbroker. But despite these qualifications, Neff was turned down. Why? According to a biographer, the brokerage firm felt “his voice didn’t carry enough authority.”
It didn’t take long for Neff to recover from this setback.
DECIDING WHETHER to buy bonds or pay down the mortgage used to be a tricky decision. Not anymore: Paying extra on your home loan will almost always be the right choice.
This takes some explaining—because it involves wrapping your head around the standard vs. itemized deduction, investment taxes, and a mortgage’s shifting mix of principal and interest.
First, let’s dispense with the obvious objection: Yes, if you’re inclined to buy stocks rather than pay down the mortgage,
MUCH CRITICISM is leveled against millennials, often defined as those born between 1981 and 1996. The criticism is frequently directed at their money and career decisions, including their purportedly foolish spending, excessive borrowing, job-hopping, self-absorption and sense of entitlement.
The perception is so pervasive that even millennials buy into this view of themselves.
But I wouldn’t be too quick to criticize millennials or compare them unfavorably to older generations. Each generation confronts its own unique challenges and difficulties,
IT CAN BE HARD to find time to make healthy meals, plus—with the convenience of fast food restaurants—why bother? It’s way easier to enter the drive-through at the local burger joint than it is to scramble together ingredients at home and make a healthier version.
But these decisions come at a cost, financial and otherwise. Most fast foods are loaded with sodium and calories, while lacking the nutrients you need for optimum health. This can lead to weight gain,
FOR PURCHASES under $10, 49% of U.S. adults typically use cash, 35% use a debit card and just 16% use a credit card, according to a CreditCards.com survey.
NO. 64: AS WE GROW wealthier, we should seize the chance to save on insurance—by raising deductibles, lengthening elimination periods and perhaps dropping some policies entirely.
GET SPENDING money out of stocks. Calculate how much cash you’ll need from your portfolio over the next five years. That money should be out of stocks and invested in nothing more volatile than high-quality short-term bonds. You don’t want to be forced to sell shares at depressed prices—and that could happen if your time horizon is less than five years.
NO. 108: OUR HUNTER-gatherer instincts tell us to consume right away—and not save for the future. What to do? We might automate our regular savings. We should visualize our goals, so they seem more alluring than today’s spending. We might share our financial ambitions with others, so fear of their disapproval prods us to act.
BETA AND ALPHA. Beta measures an investment’s volatility relative to a benchmark index. If the investment has a positive alpha, it means it outperformed the index on a risk-adjusted basis, with that risk measured by beta. For instance, a mutual fund could trail the market averages, but still have a positive alpha if its performance wasn’t especially volatile.