SERIES I SAVINGS bonds have lately garnered a lot of investor interest because—if you buy during the current six-month purchase period—your initial annualized interest rate will be 3.54%. You’ll only earn that for the first six months. Thereafter, your yield will match the inflation rate. For bonds purchased between May and October, there’s no additional interest paid, over and above the inflation rate.
Still, the higher inflation climbs, the more interest your I bonds will earn.

FOUR OF CANADA’S five biggest banks recently announced they’re going to raise service charges, even though they continue to rake in billions in profits. Taking advantage of people, when they’re struggling to make ends meet during the pandemic, is beyond comprehension—and it’s in direct conflict with my values.
In their defense, the banks stated that the increases were made after careful consideration and that other options were available to customers. This is classic bank-speak.

MY EMPLOYER’S 401(K) plan is great, with a generous matching contribution and lots of investment options. Those looking for even more choice can open a brokerage subaccount within the 401(k), allowing them to buy thousands of securities.
I’ve stayed away from the brokerage option, in part because I feared the extra choice might affect my investment discipline. But my growing anxiety about inflation forced me to reconsider.
I want a predictable cash reserve to cover my expenses for the next 10 years,

OFTEN WRONG, never in doubt. That describes many economic prognosticators. A rational response: Treat their predictions like hazardous waste—handle with caution, or better yet, don’t handle at all.
Among the countless examples, consider newsletter writer Harry Dent. Armed with a Harvard MBA, Dent makes market predictions that are fantastic and frequently wrong. In late April and more recently in June, he predicted that the market would crash, adding that if he’s wrong, he would quit his job.

THOSE WHO FOLLOW financial news know that mid-to-late July is the middle of earnings season. While I enjoy learning how companies are performing, I also get agitated by the way the media reports earnings information.
Having spent more than 20 years in corporate finance, I know the rigor involved in preparing earnings reports. Company accountants usually take one-to-two weeks to compile financial results, which then are reviewed by external auditors. In addition, investor relations,

LAST MONTH, the Federal Reserve released the results of its latest stress tests of major financial institutions. As an investor in Wells Fargo, I took special interest in the Fed’s findings. Why? If Wells Fargo passed the Fed’s stress test, it would be allowed to raise its dividend, which currently stands at a paltry 10 cents a share, amounting to a dividend yield of just 0.9%.
I’m fully aware that my obsession with stock dividends is less than rational.

IF YOU THINK BITCOIN or any other cryptocurrency will one day be used as readily as dollars and cents, give some thought to this year’s volatility. Suppose you were using your bitcoin stash to pay your $2,000 monthly mortgage payment. Between April and today, the effective cost of your mortgage would have doubled—because bitcoin’s value has been pretty much cut in half.
Now, if you were paid in bitcoin and your mortgage payment was fixed at some value specified in bitcoin,

MY HUSBAND AND I have been selecting investments together for years—and we’re still married. How have we gotten along for decades without killing each other?
Our investment discussions revolve mostly around individual stocks and bonds. They constitute the bulk of our investments and take up the bulk of our time. We own everything from small amounts of risky stocks like Immutep (symbol: IMMP) to blue chips like Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) and 3M (MMM).

YOU MIGHT RECALL Malcolm in the Middle, a turn-of-the-century TV sitcom in which the middle child often feels ignored. That’s kind of what goes on with midsized stocks.
Large-capitalization growth shares and small-cap value stocks seem to get all the attention these days. The former feature the FAAMG companies (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and Google) and other 2020 winners, while the latter are the darling of investors who embrace academic research showing strong long-term outperformance by small-cap value shares.

SHAQ AND A-ROD have gotten involved in special purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs, one of the hottest products on Wall Street over the past year. I got there a few years earlier.
In 2018, I invested $5,000 in a SPAC that has since underperformed the market. Still, I got some hands-on experience ahead of the 2020-21 boom. Thinking of buying a SPAC? Based on my investment, here’s what you can expect.
Tom Farley isn’t a household name like Shaq or A-Rod,

MANY OF US HAVE much of our wealth in stocks and bonds—and that raises some nagging questions. How safe is this money? What do I own that I can really count on? If I’m retired, how much of this portfolio can I afford to spend in the year ahead? These concerns grow when markets seem high.
How can we get some perspective on these questions? We might try calculating our “spendable net worth.” What’s that?

SERIES I SAVINGS bonds are getting a lot of attention right now because their stated yield is 3.54%, an apparently fabulous interest rate on an almost no-risk investment.
But don’t be fooled: While I bonds are a fine choice for super-conservative investors, you’ll get that 3.54% annualized yield for just six months and thereafter the yield could be far lower.
I bonds feature a variable interest rate that floats with inflation. That floating rate resets each May and November based on recent inflation.

A TEL AVIV WOMAN named Anat decided to surprise her elderly mother with a gift. Noticing that her mother had been sleeping on the same worn-out mattress for decades, Anat replaced it while her mother was away from the house. She then took the old mattress out to the curb.
It wasn’t until the next morning that her mother noticed the change and asked what had happened to the old mattress. Anat explained that she had put it out with the trash,

IF WE WANTED TO design a portfolio that appeals to our worst investment instincts, we might couple a savings account with lottery tickets. Some governments have even issued bonds with just these characteristics.
What’s the attraction? The savings account ensures that part of our portfolio never loses value, while the lottery tickets let us dream of riches in return for a relatively small investment.
This year, we’ve seen the lottery-ticket mentality writ large, as investors take fliers on meme stocks,