The Economist looks at the moral hazard for emerging market countries that is being created by the low spreads on their bonds. In the global market’s desperate search for higher yields, the spreads on emerging market debt have declined precipitously. Even countries like Argentina which purposely defaulted on a number of bonds five [...]

Here are some tips to parents who have adult children living with them.

Make sure they have health insurance
Charge them rent (you can always give it back to them in a gift after they move out).
If they are on their own, try to help them stay on their own.

And the conclusion
“How do you know that your [...]

If TD Ameritrade lowers the pricing on the product, this will be a huge win for the industry. For those who don’t know, iRebal has created software that does household wide rebalancing. This means you can have a target allocation for a collection of accounts and it will take into account tax basis [...]

Light fare for today.
Here is some entertaining commentary on today’s investment environment. Make sure you watch it through the song.
http://www.yieldsz.com/

There has been a steady stream of research over the last few years showing how people are hardwired to make poor money decisions. This book takes a look at how our brains wiring makes us particularly inept at pursuing happiness. Unlike Blink, this book is not a fast read and is significantly more [...]

As people slowly start to migrate to the new Microsoft Office you may start getting files that your current office software doesn’t recognize. Here is the compatibility pack you need to allow your older office software to read the newer formats.
Here are some of the new extensions created by the new Word, Powerpoint and [...]

A bunch of new bond ETFs and one international ETF are out or coming out soon.
Vanguard will be introducing four low-cost bond ETFs that pair up with the following bond funds:

Total Bond Market Index Fund
Short-Term Bond Index Fund
Intermediate-Term Bond Index Fund
Long-Term Bond Index Fund

The expense ratio will be .11% on each of them.
Barclays will [...]

Today is blue Monday (a.k.a. the saddest day of the year), so I thought I would distract everyone and get their blood pumping a bit by sharing some thoughts on a controversial subject.
There has been a meme going around the industry recently about the need to be more active in asset allocations. While the [...]

The Economist reports on research investigating how our brains make purchasing decisions and helps explain a different study which demonstrated people are willing to pay twice as much at an auction when using credit cards versus cash.
The short message is to reiterate that for those who have difficulty controlling their spending, eliminate the use of [...]

Among other things the IRS has posted IRS Notice 2007-7 which provides guidance on non spousal rollovers of qualified accounts authorized by the Pension Protection Act (PPA). Here are some of the key points I get from the Q&A.
Sec 829 – Non Spouse Beneficiary transfer to inherited IRA

Plans are not required to support it! [...]