We're going to put ourselves in your shoes today. Through two examples, we'll present some simple but effective financial planning techniques. Janet is 30 years old with plans for a young family and John is 55 years old with plans to retire in 5-10 years...

Beginning with the December 2011 month-end statements, Fidelity will be adding some items to your statement that will help you to identify more easily the extent of your holdings in specific investments. This article contains details about those enhancements.

It’s pretty crummy out there, right? The media is full of up to the minute “reports” about high unemployment, large government debts, misallocation of income between rich and poor, financial troubles all over the world and so on. You have to look past the general media to see the bifurcation that may eventually create a “New American Dream.” How we got to this point is abundantly clear...

We all know that everything in our physical universe not artificially controlled is subject to cyclic action. The sun rises and sets, people are born, grow and die, empires wax and wane –and markets rise and fall. In this month’s note, let’s look at a long-term account of ours through the lens of market tops and bottoms. In particular, let’s see if Ms. X’s account is higher after each succeeding major market low and if it’s higher after each succeeding market high...

Imagine it’s raining. You either stay inside or you somehow insulate yourself against the effects of the rain on hair, clothes and skin. Or you just enjoy the rain in swimming suits, much as children do. Down, or bear markets, are much like rain. They occasion us to either ignore it and “lose” a substantial portion of the gains from the prior up cycle or take some kind of evasive action...

It’s great fun to visit a circus to eat popcorn and watch performers gyrate this way and that. It’s fun because the performers are good at what they do and, interestingly, because you have nothing at risk. If a performer should suddenly stumble and fall to the net below, you may be momentarily shocked, but unless you knew the person you wouldn’t think too much about the accident for long. But what if your accounts do the same kind of gravity fall downward as if pulled by a huge, diabolic magnet?

A crisis usually begins with a good idea. Long ago, someone decided that it was a “good idea” to get as many Americans into home ownership as possible. Things went generally fine for some sixty years until some financial wizards noted that interest rates were low and would probably stay low for some time. A whole generation of new financial “time bombs” was created ...

Many of us played “King of the Mountain” as kids. In the game, we’d all compete for the place atop a mound we’d made. No one could stay there long; too many groping hands saw to that. Could our financial lives, indeed all life, follow much the same course? Here’s how the argument goes...

Today we’d like to share with you the major principles and protocols which guide us in the management of your money. Principle 1: Don't Lose Much; Principle 2: Recognize the Risk and Opportunity of Every Market Cycle and Invest Accordingly; Principle 3: Never Stray Far From Core Competence...

Cash flow from labor and investments represents your “abundance,” the resources given you to sustain yourself and, arguably, to help others. If you consider your income’s purpose to be for “the highest good of all” then you may avoid the “Midas trap” that afflicts people who can never get enough for themselves, no matter how much they might have.

Inflation has averaged 3% in the U.S. for most of the 20th and 21st Centuries. The distribution of inflation over ten year periods is very uneven (lumpy), much like stock markets. The pattern has gone like this: rising inflation begets lower inflation and lower inflation begets rising inflation. You are not in the least bit concerned about the inflation of 20, 30, 40 years ago, but should you be?

The common stock is one of the most loved - and the most hated - of investments. From about 1982 - 2000, the common stock was on a tear as interest rates dropped, the U.S. became more productive, the boomers grew up and the Internet matured. People could not get enough of not just any common stock, but as the rally progressed they wanted increasing amounts of those which were either egregiously expensive or those which made no money but showed promise. Since 2000, the common stock has generally fallen out of favor.

What's on your worry list? Worries, preoccupations and concerns vary widely as you age and as circumstances around you (economy, family situation, etc.) change. There is one huge drawback to compiling worry lists: they can be divorced from reality, dominated by immediate concerns. Why? The psychologically closer an event is to you, the greater the emotion you feel. What's worse, the worry that is closest to you may be looming large in your mind, but it may not be your most serious threat.

Think of someone you regard as wise. What are that person's characteristics? More than likely, the qualities of this wise person add up to putting reason, experience, principles and knowledge in the service of a worthy cause. Just how do you go about being financially wise?

Where else but financial markets can uncertainty lead to certainty and certainty lead to uncertainty? This is no mere rhetorical question, because in the answer lies the difference between success and failure as an investor. Our SWJ of November 6, 2010 discussed investment uncertainty in depth. Below is a capsule summary of the article followed by today's discussion of investment certainty.

It's in the DNA of financial planners to use client goals as the basic building block of their work. The goal represents the destination, planner recommendations the means to get there, or the highway. Does the goal setting and recommendation process work in practice? Is goal setting a real life, useful exercise for most people? Maybe there is a better way...

We go from young to old. Seasons move in predictable rhythms. The tides role in and roll out. So why shouldn't investment show cyclicality? They do. Understanding a contemporaneous place in the investment cycle is the macroeconomic investor's challenge.

Prof. Meir Statman provided the inspiration for today's SWJ. In his recent book, What Investors Really Want, he presents three distinctly different rewards investors can get. We've been focused on the first - utilitarian benefits - but looking at the broader picture, we can see how expressive and emotional benefits play to an investor's overall measurement of her success.

We've completed a full cycle of declining interest rates. From 1981, when the overnight Federal funds rate stood at 19% to today at 0.23%, we've had a strong market tailwind. Why? Declining rates make borrowing cheaper, provide capital gains to bond holders and make stocks more attractive than bonds...

Post traumatic stress syndrome? Whew, thank heavens none of you suffer any lingering effects from the Great Bear of 2008-2009. Or do you?

John Howard is a go-go kind of guy. He plays everything in his life to the max - handball, business, games - he's a risk taker and competitor in everything he does. He has a net worth (what he owns minus what he owes) of about $5 million. He comes to us looking for investment management. What do we tell him? Do we indulge his risk taking proclivity?