Articles

The S&P 500 has nearly doubled in the last four years. Yet many investors are left feeling more disillusioned with their investments than ever before. Some of this discontent can be combated by understanding the psychological effects of market volatility.

This kitten isn’t afraid of the markets. Be more like this kitten.

“To answer that, it’s good to review key indicators, like the Shiller P/E ratio, and their recent history, experts say”

Without public accountability, people are rightly suspicious that even the legitimate operations of government are corrupt.

Today’s Carnival covers a wide range of topics such as planning for your finances before college, what to do financially after college, how to think like the wealthy, and how to think about finances when one spouse doesn’t head to the office every day.

“The divergent claims about gold can be puzzling. How can a commodity that predominantly is either stored in a vault or gets formed into jewelry have so many stories spun around it?”

Money plays such a personal role in our lives that most people learn early on to keep their financial affairs a secret. These shadows promote many different varieties of financial pathologies and distress.

“Don’t air condition the outside” and “Turn the lights off when you leave a room” are often quoted as proverbs of energy savings, but the real savings is in several other appliances.

Fearful of monetary or societal failure, many hope that owning gold will bring them peace of mind.

Investing $512 in the S&P 500 at the end of 1979 grew with reinvested dividends for a total return of $19,323.19.

On average gold keeps up with inflation, albeit with wild gyrations.

From $255.95 gold rose to $1,795.00 between 4/2/2001 and 11/8/2011.

From $850 gold dropped to $255.95 between 1/21/1980 and 4/2/2001.

Gold advocates cherry pick gold’s returns from trough to peak.

Stocks have an average annualized appreciation over inflation of 6.86%, whereas gold is just 0.33% over inflation.