Sound Advice

Life Insurance Choosing the right life insurance policy is an important decision that can provide financial security for your loved ones in the event of your untimely death. There are various types of life insurance policies available, each with its own features and benefits. To help you make an informed choice, it's essential to consider your financial goals, family's needs, and budget. Here are some of the best choices in life insurance: 1.      Term Life Insurance: Term life insurance is a popular and straightforward option. It provides coverage for a specified term, typically ranging from 10 to 30 years. Term policies offer a death benefit to the beneficiaries if the insured passes away during the policy term. This type of insurance is often affordable and suitable for individuals seeking temporary coverage, such as paying off a mortgage, covering education expenses, or replacing income during working years. 2.      Whole Life Insu...

International Investing International investing refers to the practice of investing in assets outside one's home country.   It has gained significant popularity in recent years due to increased globalization and the growing interconnectedness of financial markets.   Investing internationally offers several advantages and opportunities, but it also comes with unique risks and challenges. One of the key benefits of international investing is diversification.   By spreading investments across different countries and regions, investors can reduce their exposure to country-specific risks and potentially achieve more stable returns. Different countries have diverse economies, industries, and market cycles, which means that while one country may be experiencing a downturn, another may be flourishing.   This diversification can enhance the overall risk-adjusted return of an investment portfolio. Moreover, international investing allows access to a broader range of in...

Make a fortune with AI? Not surprisingly, there has been a marked upsurge in promotional activity for the impact of artificial intelligence on forecasting future movements of individual stocks and the stock market as a whole.   Gee whiz, where have I heard that kind of thing before? Whether it’s AI or some other brilliant scheme, what are always part of the pitch are references about the powerful computers that have developed these miraculous techniques, which (for a hefty fee) can be yours to outsmart all the other people with Ouija boards and similar mystical devices for seeing the future.   This kind of situation reminds me of my years with the Value Line organization, which was periodically contacted by would-be Super Investors who had come up with “extraordinary” breakthroughs that would lead the way to great wealth. Often, we’d respond by inviting the folks up for a meeting, which seemed interesting until we asked for results over the last five or 10 years.   ...

Attention, Traders! While the investment markets have done little more than marking time over the last couple of months, I’ve noticed an increasing number of TV commercials aimed at the same folks who go to casinos with the belief that they can beat the system.   The typical commercial has a person sitting in front of a large monitor displaying an abundance of charts and tables intended to create the belief that all the magic needed to make a fortune is there waiting for them. Fascinating?   And absurd.   Investment analysts whose time is devoted exclusively to wading through all of the information available to determine what’s likely to be a good holding and what’s not don’t exactly have stellar records of making the best choices.   So how is a typical investor supposed to decipher a screen full of essentially useless data? Quite possibly the extreme example of this was a stockbroker friend of mine who had an opposing pair of large semicircular desks surroun...