Articles on Wealth Management Topics

If you rely on the media, and particularly the local media, for your coverage of the stock market, you will find that the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) is the most oft-quoted measure of how the stock market performed on a given day. And yet most stock market professionals - portfolio managers, analysts, strategists and the like - will refer to the S&P 500 Index instead of the DJIA as their preferred yardstick of market performance. Why is this?

If there is a Rodney Dangerfield of investments, it has to be Treasury Bonds. They always yield less than other taxable fixed-income investments with the same maturity, they don't get the airtime afforded stocks, and they don't have the mysterious allure of alternative investments. But in times of crisis, when other investments are withering under the pressure, Treasury Bonds usually step into the breach to provide a diversified portfolio with capital gains when they're needed most.

With financial markets quietly grinding higher in recent months, I've been able to complete one of my major projects for the year, which was to investigate so-called "smart beta" mutual funds.