Author name: Don Steinmann

Make sure you designate beneficiaries for your IRA accounts. Check with your bank or broker to be sure they are there and what you really want.

Wall Street does not look at the news like normal people. Here are five differences.

You can tap your retirement accounts early. But unless it’s truly a life threatening emergency, don’t.

You *must* take a backup of all your financial information on a regular basis. Don’t trust to luck.

Very occasionally, the deal that sounds to good to be true, is really true. Be careful, but ready.

Don’t let politics have an outsized effect on your investment decisions.

The ratings of municipal and corporate bonds may look the same, but they don’t mean the same thing.

Most Americans have almost no savings. That’s going to make their ‘golden years’ pretty leaden.

If you’re buying below investment grade bonds (i.e. junk bonds) you need to be aware of how much the risk of default goes up.

When it comes to bond yields, the most important number is the Yield to Worst case.