In the US there are over one million licensed insurance agents/brokers. Many of them are trying to sell you an annuity (specifically a fixed index annuity). Why is that? Why does it make sense for brokers to sell them? Why does it make sense for insurance companies to try to sell them? In this post, we’ll […]

https://www.simplywise.com/whats-this-chargeWe all need a checking account. It is an account from which money comes and goes; we use it to deposit our paychecks, pay our bills, send money to our friends and so on. In return for the convenience of having a checking account, the bank either charges us a monthly maintenance fee, or if […]

By the end of the October 1929 stock market crash, investors had lost $25 billion – $364 billion in today’s terms. Why did the stock markets crash? Are the causes of the crash true today? The answer is that it’s complicated. Rather than a single catalyst, mounting pressures from multiple factors contributed to the crash. These […]

For the last 18 months, the Federal Reserve has been increasing interest rates. The last time this happened was over 10 years ago, which means that many people who began investing in the past decade have only experienced an economic environment of low or falling rates. The key question we’ll try to answer is: what is likely […]

The US has experienced close to a 10-year bull market; since 2009, the S&P 500 has returned over 270%. When the inevitable market correction comes, which type of investors will feel the most pain? We looked at data on the finances of US households to identify three categories of investors who have the most exposure to stocks […]

On October 16, 1929, Yale economist Irving Fisher wrote in the New York Times that “Stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.” Eight days later, on October 24, 1929, the stock market began a four-day crash on what became known as Black Thursday. This crash cost investors more than World War I and […]

How do you decide how much of your assets should be in stocks? One approach is to max out your 401k, IRA, etc and invest everything you possibly can into the market while you are young and less so as you grow older. Another is to have enough money in liquid assets to cover expenses […]

The speed of the recent sell-off in stocks has caught many investors by surprise. It’s hard to know what causes stocks to rise and fall over short periods of time, but one factor at play may be that the Federal Reserve has been raising interest rates. Pundits have been discussing what raising rates means for […]

Unless you follow investing closely you may never have heard of the “yield curve” and may not realize how much impact it has on your life. The yield curve predicts to some extent your income over the next few years, whether or not you’ll be able to borrow money and how your portfolio is likely […]

You’ve probably heard that annuities are a great way to provide for your future. You may also know that there are different types of annuities: every annuity is either variable or fixed, and either immediate or deferred. This brief guide will tell you everything you need to know about deferred annuities (also sometimes called deferred payment annuities, or delayed annuities), so […]