“It seemed so obvious. With the economy slowly recovering last year from the worst recession in decades and the federal government seeking to tap the credit markets for over $2 trillion to fund an ambitious spending program, both laymen and experts alike seemed to agree that interest rates had nowhere to go but up. The […]

As of mid-March, common stocks, as measured by the S&P 500, had reached a five-year high. Pundits love to seize upon this type of “factoid.” It has provided fodder for facile prognosticators, both Bull (Good times are back!) and Bear (The market has gone nowhere in five years!). What is an investor to do when

No good product goes unabused by Wall Street. Such is the case with exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Our readers will recognize that we recommend several ETFs. These allow investors to take a stake in several of our recommended asset class indexes at an extremely low cost. However, ETFs have grown exponentially in a very short period

Gold has been rediscovered by the financial press. Ignored and even scorned during the “tech boom” of the late 1990s, it is suddenly a glamour asset. In our view, gold is one of many asset classes worthy of inclusion in most portfolios. While many view gold as a commodity, our parent, the American Institute for

This month we are making several changes among our recommended investment vehicles as well as to the “weights” we assign to the asset classes we recommend for investors of various circumstances. These changes do not represent a significant departure from our approach. They result from the emergence of new investment vehicles not previously available to

Over six years ago we deviated from our disciplined approach to investing when we removed Philip Morris (now Altria, ticker: MO) from our high-yield Dow investment model. We have come to regret that decision, and it is one we intend never to repeat. MO subsequently provided a total return of about 30 percent per year.

The Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee (FOMC) chose to keep the Federal Funds target rate at 5.25 percent in its September meeting, while leaving open the possibility of future rate increases. While we will not second-guess the market’s response to this latest Fed news cycle, we do have serious concerns regarding the larger issue of

The shift in power in Washington has, not surprisingly, prompted a good deal of prognostication from those who make their living prognosticating. Thankfully, we are free instead to focus on prudent investing. It is interesting to note that up until the votes were counted, no one was really sure how Congress might be altered. Nevertheless,

In February 2006 Ben Bernanke will take over as Chairman of the Federal Reserve. The change brings to an end the Chairmanship of Alan Greenspan, which began in August 1987. While much has been written about the change in command, this is but one more bit of news that has been absorbed by the financial

As this issue of the Investment Guide was being prepared, the subject of financial regulation was front and center at AIER and in the nation’s capital. We had the good fortune of having Dr. Edward J. Kane, professor of finance at Boston College, on campus to deliver a lecture to the AIER summer fellowship program.