Jennifer Meacham,  March 26, 2007

Every story needs it context. Take New Home Sales Drop, which reports that February home sales fell to a 13-year low. Though the article dismisses worries for investors and retirees, it sums up the news as indicative of “softness in the housing market” and “sluggish [market] recovery.” However, if you balance the 3.9 percent drop in new home sales with last week’s news that home sales jumped 3.9 percent in February, then suddenly the picture’s not so foreboding. Indeed, existing home sales beat economists’ annual forecasts by 360,000 homes – that’s 6.69 million existing homes sold versus the predicted 6.33 million and well ahead of the 848,000 new home sales. Right now, investors say the best deals for investment properties are in undervalued, older properties… so this rise makes complete sense. Here’s one more example: In other articles I’ve followed the foreclosure market, and the media was abuzz in doom-and-gloom predictions when studies showed a 42 percent year-over-year increase in foreclosures from 2005 to 2006. Yet my investigation into foreclosure rates since 1993 showed that 14 of those years had foreclosure rates that were just as high, or higher. While foreclosures are still an interesting investment, there’s not the glut of cheap properties that the news made it out to be. It’s all a matter of perspective. As an investor, or simply an informed consumer, it pays to make sure you’re taking every market twist and turn in context.

Jennifer Meacham,  March 24, 2007

Combined assets of the nation's mutual funds increased by $152.8 billion, or 1.5 percent, to $10.567 trillion in January, according to The Investment Company Institute's newest survey on the mutual fund industry. The rise in assets reflects a growing confidence in mutual fund returns after their 2003 fall from grace - largely due to portfolios wiped out by tech company over-investment and company stock scandals. Nearly 90 percent of mutual fund shareholders in 2006 are “very” or “somewhat” confident that investing in mutual funds will assist them in reaching their financial goals, reports the institute. Certainly this method of diversified investing tends to provide more secure, though not necessarily greater, returns. The fees can be higher than individual stock investing, but it is comforting for me to know that - if I've done my due dilligence - a trained investment representative is managing the buys and sells. So, whether you subscribe to the Warren Buffett approach to long-term mutual fund investing or prefer to get in on the ground floor of the hottest growth companies, it’s good to know that consumers are once again recognizing that it’s the market – not the mutual fund product itself – that dictates returns.   

Tom Murphy,  March 20, 2007

The costs of energy can't always be measured in price-per-gallon or the monthly heating bill. There are much larger costs that manifest themselves in global warming, contaminated water, lost forests and myriad other ways. We see another horrible cost in a methane explosion in Siberia that killed 100 miners. It's easy to ignore a tragedy so far away. But the energy marketplace is global. It may begin with miners mucking out the ore, but it ends when we flip on a light we don't really need. We create the demand. Miners and oil workers simply try to meet that demand. And sometimes, they die trying.

Jennifer Meacham,  March 15, 2007

Some of us weren’t blessed with pensions: We worked for employers that didn’t provide them, were self-employed or stayed at home. But even for those counting on their employer to help fund their golden years, there’s disturbing news. Employers are altering their pension plans so that “benefits accrue at a slower rate for older workers and … leaves employees without the ability to determine their monthly retirement benefit,” according to RedwoodAge.com’s Pension Plan Challenge. This has major impacts on a retiree’s bottom line. This article not only  illustrates the trend, it also discusses the steps workers like you are taking to challenge these changes in court. However, all isn’t lost if these cases don’t force change. A growing number of pension-fund recipients are wasting no time in rolling over their plans to self-directed Individual Retirement Arrangements (IRAs). The investors I’ve talked for other articles say their new-found ability to handpick the IRA’s tax-sheltered investments – into everything from real estate to business ventures – has helped them not only recover their 2000 stock market losses but also outpace their previous returns. This suggests that the negative impacts of pension restructuring can be abated, if those affected take this time to uncover how to make their money work double duty once it’s safely in an IRA.

Jennifer Meacham,  March 15, 2007

Consumers regularly run-up credit cards, dip into home equity or sell off investments and other assets to finance day-to-day expenses, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. In January – the most recent month tracked by the bureau – the average American not only spent all of his or her earnings but also borrowed against or sold 1.2 percent of his or her assets. December assets dropped even faster, at 1.4 percent, following a 1 percent decline in November. That giant sucking sound isn’t a good thing, and it underscores my fears: Just yesterday I noticed that my local convenience store has posted a military recruitment poster on its front door … a seeming throwback to the Great Depression. Indeed, RedwoodAge.com’s article Going for Broke finds that today’s savings rates are at the lowest points since the Depression. I pledge to do my part to raise my own savings; I hope you’l l join with me. Together we can buck this foreboding trend – and increase our own bottom lines in the process.

Tom Murphy,  March 15, 2007

I haven’t visited Forbidden City since the mid-80s, when China was a very, very different place. At the time, I felt China most resembled Ireland in that the many people I met were kindly, had an almost idealistic notion of sharing, and took intense pride in their history. But it was clear then that things were about to change in a big way as the Chinese got their first glimpse of how the rest of the world was living. This was before the first Kentucky Fried Chicken opened near Tiananmen Square, and before the riots. It was before millions of automobiles clogged Beijing’s streets. It was before the country had emerged as one of the biggest polluters on the planet. Yes, so much progress, so many interesting times. There may be no turning back the clock, but a Chinese lawmaker is trying to draw the line by having a Starbucks removed from the Forbidden Palace. Good for him, I say. These were the hallowed halls where Ming and Ching emperors walked. Having a gourmet coffee shop there is no more appropriate that placing one inside Independence Hall. And, Howard Schultz, if you’re reading this, somehow I know you agree.