DOES WEALTH BRING advantages? Yes—but it can also invite some unique challenges. Consider country music singer Kane Brown.
Shortly after moving into a new home, he went for a walk. He told his wife he’d be back in half an hour. But seven hours later, after getting lost, he ended up calling for help. What was unique about this episode is that, the entire time he was lost, Brown was on his own property.

YESTERDAY, I MADE the case for investing heavily in foreign stocks. Were you convinced? Many investors aren’t. They feel there’s no need to venture abroad. Here are three key arguments for keeping your stock portfolio close to home:
No. 1: The U.S. market provides adequate diversification.
Proponents cotend that, on their own, U.S. stocks offer all the diversification that an investor needs. U.S. shares represent a majority of global stock market capitalization,

STOCKS WORLDWIDE have a total market value of some $85 trillion, with the U.S. accounting for 54%, developed foreign markets 35% and emerging markets 11%. Should your stock portfolio have similar weightings, as some experts suggest?
Tomorrow, I’ll look at the argument for keeping your stock market money close to home. But today’s article presents the case for venturing abroad—by focusing on three key arguments:
No. 1: A global stock portfolio is less risky than a U.S.-only portfolio.

TWO WEEKS AGO, I described how to scour your portfolio for holdings that no longer fit your financial plan. At a high level, these investments fail at least one of two tests:

Risk. Some investments are just inherently unsuitable or excessively risky. Alternatively, an investment might be perfectly fine, but it represents a big risk simply because you own so much of it.
Return. You might have an investment that has chronically underperformed,

TARGET-DATE FUNDS offer one-stop investment shopping. But what exactly are you buying?
These funds are intended to offer a diversified portfolio that’ll carry you through to retirement and beyond. Each follows a “glide path,” reducing its stock exposure over time. But the substantial differences among the funds means that some roads will be rockier than others, so it’s important to understand what you’re getting.
For instance, young investors in 2060 target-date funds—like my children—will have 90% or more in stocks.

THE STOCK MARKET hit a milestone last week, surpassing its pre-coronavirus all-time high. There’s a lot of debate about whether this is justified or sustainable. But the bottom line is, your portfolio today probably looks very different from the way it looked six months or a year ago. This may be a good time to take stock of what you own and to consider whether changes are warranted.
Back in February, I talked about the importance of asset allocation—and that’s a critical first step.

FOR THOSE WHO KNOW their A.A. Milne, they’ll recall Eeyore as Winnie the Pooh’s perennially gloomy donkey friend. Which brings me to my inner Eeyore—and a thought provoked by the stock market’s astonishing recovery.
Now that the S&P 500 is once again hitting new highs, it’s time to prepare for the next bear market. No, I haven’t reduced my stock holdings as share prices have bounced back and, no, I’m not predicting that another crash is imminent.

WHEN I BEGAN investing in 1987 at age 33, I knew very little about the financial markets. As a new University of North Carolina employee, I just started having money taken from my paycheck each month and put in North Carolina’s 457 plan for state employees. A 457 plan is a deferred compensation plan, similar to a 401(k) plan, but the plans are offered by state and local governments, and they’re subject to somewhat different rules.

HOW WOULD YOU FEEL about a stock market strategy that routinely invests more after prices go up and sells when prices drop? As someone who invests for the long haul, I’m skeptical—which is why the increasing popularity of leveraged exchange-traded funds (ETFs) puzzles me.
A leveraged ETF aims to amplify the daily return of its stated benchmark. The fund’s benchmark might be a widely followed stock or bond index, a particular market sector, a single industry or one country.

WORRIED ABOUT inflation? You might be drawn to inflation-indexed Treasury bonds—officially known as Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities, or TIPS. These bonds protect you from unexpected inflation, plus there’s no risk of default.
Those features make TIPS attractive to investors who are concerned about rising consumer prices, and especially the impact of inflation on the bond portion of their portfolio. Intrigued? Before you invest, here are six factors to consider:
1. Hedging vs. speculating. TIPS can be used to hedge against inflation or to speculate on it.

THE MID-2000s WERE my introduction to the investment world—and even today my thinking is heavily influenced by what was happening then.
Take a moment to recall the 2004-07 period. Stock prices were marching higher, foreign shares were crushing U.S. stocks, small caps were doing all right and you could get a decent interest rate on your savings account. Good times. Another feature of the mid-2000s market: a big bull run in commodities.
Back then,

IT’S NEVER BEEN cheaper to build a globally diversified portfolio of index funds. In fact, today, you could invest $100,000 and pay just $10 in annual fund expenses—equal to the cost of two Big Macs and a large fries.
Moreover, you don’t need $100,000 to build that portfolio. Not even close. The funds in question—which are managed by Fidelity Investments—have no required investment minimum, which means your four-year-old could start investing with the contents of her piggybank.

IN RECENT WEEKS, I’ve focused on some of the growing risks in the financial system. In the stock market, there are day trading enthusiasts and their obliging brokers. In Washington, there’s a Federal Reserve that has served up a seemingly bottomless punch bowl of new money.
Result: Despite the current recession and 11% unemployment, the stock market is close to its pre-coronavirus all-time high, fueled in part by the Fed’s policies, which have driven income-starved investors to take greater risk.

OUR PAST INVESTMENT errors give us strong clues about how we’ll behave in future. They also contain lessons we can put to good use.
Since I started investing, I’ve occasionally assessed my performance—but not in the traditional sense. Rather than evaluating my portfolio’s results, I’ve been pondering my response to the errors I’ve made.
My first mistake happened before I even began investing. I avoided the stock market because of fears of a potential correction.

“THE CHINESE PLAY the long game. We play checkers, they play chess.”
You hear such sentiments from Americans a lot. It’s one of the narratives that draws foreign money to China. The story is so good, it distracts investors from an important fact: The oldest China exchange-traded fund, the iShares China Large-Cap ETF (symbol: FXI), has lost a quarter of its value since peaking in 2007. Yet somehow—helped by Chinese government pressure on index providers—China’s weight in the emerging markets indexes is higher than ever.