My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.

Mental Stress Test For a Severe Recession and Stock Market Crash

After my last quarterly portfolio update, I rebalanced back to my target asset allocation this week. I sold some US stocks and went from 70% stocks/30% bonds back to 67% stocks/33% bonds. (I bought a little Emerging Market stocks as well.) In … [Read the rest]

Chase You Invest: 100 Free Stock Trades Details and Comparison

Chase just announced a new free stock trade program as part of a new online brokerage arm called You Invest. This means another megabank is moving more heavily into "relationship banking" where they hope you will keep your bank accounts, credit … [Read the rest]

Reasons To Own TIPS, Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities

When it comes to constructing a portfolio, I used to think it was all about numbers and optimization. When you pick an asset class based on historical data, that assumes you hold through both the good times and the really bad times. It has helped me … [Read the rest]

Good Luck or Bad Luck? Maybe, It’s Hard To Tell

Reading children's books to my kids has become a regular source of new wisdom. I guess that's not surprising, if the goal is to teach kids about life. Here's one that came across recently and keeps popping back in my head. I first read it in … [Read the rest]

Everyone Worries About Money, Even The Wealthy

Here's a refreshingly blunt quote from Scott Galloway's article Yay Capitalism via It Is Always About The Money via Abnormal Returns: Wealthy people claim they don’t think much about money. That’s bullshit; they are obsessed with money. The notion … [Read the rest]

Vanguard 10-Year Expected Asset Class Returns (2018)

I was surprised to read the NY Times article Vanguard Warns of Worsening Odds for the Economy and Markets. Everything is written very carefully using odds so that there is no "prediction" that could be called "wrong" later on, but at the same time … [Read the rest]

Five Wishes: A Living Will That Goes Beyond Just Prolong / Do Not Prolong Life

People don't like talking about money. That's why I started this site. You know what people like talking about even less? Death. My wife and I have already filled out a generic advanced health directive, but I recently ran across something … [Read the rest]

Are You Quietly Losing Money via Your Brokerage Cash Sweep Account?

A recent WSJ article by Jason Zweig calls attention to one of the hidden ways that brokerage firms make money from you. As interest rates rise, they go out and earn the highest market rates while giving you a lot less on your idle cash. The … [Read the rest]

How Did Total Bond and Treasury Bond Funds Perform During the Largest Stock Market Drawdowns?

If you own bond mutual funds or ETFs, the most popular benchmark is the Bloomberg Barclays Aggregate Bond Index (AGG), which basically tracks all U.S. taxable investment-grade bonds, including US Treasury government bonds, investment-grade … [Read the rest]

Should I Break My Bank CD Early and Pay The Early Withdrawal Penalty?

Interest rates continue to rise, and holders of existing certificates of deposit (CDs) may be wondering if it is a good idea to break their current CDs in order to take advantage of a new higher rate. Most CDs impose an early withdrawal penalty if … [Read the rest]

Best Interest Rates on Cash – August 2018

Here is my monthly roundup of the best safe rates available, roughly sorted from shortest to longest maturities. Check out my Ultimate Rate-Chaser Calculator to get an idea of how much additional interest you'd earn if you are moving money between … [Read the rest]

Fidelity Investments: Zero Expense Ratio Index Funds, Zero Account Fees

Fidelity Investments announced a bunch of "zero"-themed price and fee cuts across nearly all of their products: Zero expense ratio mutual funds (two new Fidelity ZERO Index Funds) Zero account minimums, zero account fees, zero domestic money … [Read the rest]