As the end of the year approaches, mutual fund owners may benefit from examining their holdings and considering some timely sales. Read the full article

Quite a few taxpayers did Roth conversions last year, taking advantage of the change in conversion eligibility rules. But for some of them, now might be the time for a do-over. Read the full article

For most Americans, the European Debt Crisis is anything but riveting. Sure, Wall Street has been bouncing up and down in response to news about the Euro bailout fund, but Greek sovereign debt is a pretty esoteric subject for almost everyone else. Yet the cover of this week’s Economist magazine advises, “be afraid.” What are they worried about? Read the full article

Michael Cembalest, Chief Investment Officer at investment bank JPMorgan, has done the world a service by publishing a graphic view of the European Crisis, courtesy of his 9-year-old son.

Making good on its earlier warnings, S&P announced after the close of the markets today that it has lowered its long-term credit rating on US debt one notch, from AAA to AA+. Read the full article

Between the German Finance Minister announcing that the EU debt crisis isn't over and an ongoing debate over the likely market effects of a US credit downgrade, there’s a good deal of chafing at the bit on the question of what investors should do in the face of a troubling degree of market uncertainty. Read the full article

One of the key risks that retirees face is the possibility of outliving their incomes. In a report released earlier this month, the US Government Accountability Office concluded that although almost 75% of retirees start taking Social Security benefits before age 65, many workers would have a significantly better chance of a successful retirement if they worked longer and waited to start collecting Social Security. Read the full article

iShares chief investment strategist Russ Koesterich has written an engaging, insightful book explaining the magnitude of the problem that the United States national debt presents for investors. The full title of the book is The $10 Trillion Gamble: The Coming Deficit Debacle and How To Invest Now. Read the full article

Everyone understands, at some level, the need to save for long-term goals. Buying a house, preparing for retirement, or sending a child to college are goals that we know we have to save for. But how much difference does it make whether we start saving now versus saving later? Read the full article

Investment advisers have long been required to act as fiduciaries, placing the best interests of their clients above their own. In a significant report released today, the staff of the SEC has issued a recommendation that a “uniform fiduciary standard of conduct for broker-dealers and investment advisers -- no less stringent than currently applied to investment advisers under the Advisers Act – [be applied whenever] those financial professionals provide personalized investment advice about securities to retail investors.” This would be a major change from current regulatory policy. Read the full article

Having recently finished Vitaliy Katsenelson's book, I was planning to review it, but I see that my friend David Merkel over at the Aleph Blog wrote an excellent review of "The Little Book of Sideways Markets" yesterday. Rather than rehash what he's already done, I'll just recommend his review. I'll only add that the book will appeal not only to readers who know something about stocks and want to learn more, but also to those looking for a well-written introduction to the stock market. Read the full article

Meir Statman has had a distinguished career studying the way that real people make economic decisions. His new book walks the reader through a litany of the reasons that many investment and financial decisions go awry. Read the full article

Today we're honored to participate in the Fall 2010 Blog Tour for Meir Statman's new book, What Investors Really Want, with a post written exclusively for the FFS Blog by Professor Statman. Read the full article

Generally, I’ve written all the posts for this blog myself. I’m making an exception to that practice this month, because I’ve had a rare opportunity to feature a post from an expert in the field of behavioral finance.

The persistence of super-low Treasury bond interest rates has led to a new oddity in the Treasury bond market. Monday's Treasury auction of Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities resulted in investors paying a price that results in a negative yield for the bonds. Read the full article

In a move calculated to undercut competitors, the Vanguard family of funds has announced a reduction in the minimum investment required to gain access to its "Admiral" class of mutual fund shares. Read the full article

This past summer I wrote about the novel Macroshares trusts released this year that enable investors to speculate on the direction of housing prices. Earlier this week, MacroMarkets announced that instead of terminating in 2014, the trusts will terminate next week. Read the full article

For many people, December is the riskiest month in which to buy into a new mutual fund in a taxable account. This has nothing to do with the gyrations of the stock market, and everything to do with taxes. Read the full article

A recent scholarly paper reveals an interesting conclusion: quite a few hedge fund managers misrepresent the truth about past legal and regulatory problems, performance, or assets under management. Read the full article

Don Dion, writing in TheStreet.com, has included UMM and DMM on his list of the "10 Most Dangerous ETFs." Technically, they're not ETFs, but that's a minor quibble. Going beyond the criticisms I offered of MacroShares Major Metro Housing Up (UMM) and Major Metro Housing Down (DMM), Dion comments: Read the full article

Annuities have a bad reputation. They’re insurance contracts, which means they’re necessarily complicated. Often, they involve lots of hard-to-understand fees. And variable annuities, in particular, have earned a really bad reputation. Still, there is evidence that some form of annuity could be useful for many retirees. Read the full article

About 50 million people own 401(k)-type retirement plans, and the percentage of workers with defined-benefit (pension) plans has been dwindling for years. One problem with 401(k) plans is that many plans don’t disclose their fees openly. That would change if Congress moves forward with a bill currently awaiting action in the House of Representatives. Read the full article

A number of behavioral finance studies have shown that men tend to take greater levels of investment risk than women. Researchers at the University of Chicago and Northwestern University have added to these observations with new evidence that high testosterone levels are associated with risky investment behavior. Read the full article

Announcements of new exchange-traded funds arrive in my e-mailbox almost daily, but today’s seemed ironically timed: a new inverse ETF tied to the performance of twenty-year Treasuries. Read the full article

The SEC issued a joint warning with FINRA today about the risks of leveraged and inverse ETFs for retail investors. Read the full article

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