What are the Fiduciary Rules?

Every plan must have a fiduciary(s) responsible for the operation of the plan.  A fiduciary can be identified as a person or as an office, such as a company’s board of directors.  Many plans have several fiduciaries, each being responsible for a different aspect of the plan’s management.  Fiduciaries can be held liable if they fail to properly carry out their responsibilities and also for the mistakes of another...

Volatility 101: The basics of options trading

Options can be a wonderful tool to help an investor with portfolio hedging, to create extra income, even to speculate on a market trend. But before you can trade options on the stock price of Apple or Tesla, you have to understand the basics of volatility. To do that, we’re going to break down volatility into a three step recipe, which should be as easy as baking pie. Step...

Americans Continue to Face Saving Challenges, Survey Finds

According to a survey released last month by America Saves and the American Savings Education Council (ASEC), just 35% of Americans feel they are making good or excellent progress in saving money. Nearly two-thirds (63%) say they’re making fair or no progress. However, nearly 7 out of 10 (68%) say they are spending less than they are earning and saving the difference, and 64% report having emergency savings to...

What is Smart Beta?

There has been a lot of talk recently about smart beta —and some of you may be wondering what it is. First, let’s take a quick look at what defines “beta.” Beta is a measurement of the volatility of an investment compared to the market. An investment with a beta of 1 is, in theory, delivering the same volatility and performance experience as the market. Consider that the majority of indexes dominating the...

Imagining a world without ETFs

Exchange traded funds hit the scene in 1993 and have since revolutionized the investing world. The low cost and transparent structure of ETFs has resonated well with investors, as the industry as a whole has accumulated more than $1.5 trillion in total assets. We thought it would be fun to imagine a world where ETFs didn’t exist, and what today’s investment world would look like without these powerful products....

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