Q: Can you tell me little bit about IRM72? I just read about it and what I don't understand is the price of dividend if you purchase as IRM72? Can you get a higher dividend on stock purchased directly from the company? What are the perks?

Q: I’m 35 years old and I own my own S corp in California. I’m a Vangaurd do-it-yourselfer for now. My wife and I are the only employees in our S corp. We make about 250K each year. Should I pay myself with distributions, save on payroll taxes, and invest that money in a taxable account? Or should I pay the payroll taxes up front and max out the 401K for my wife and I?

Q: Big fan of your show(s) and was wondering what you think of Vanguard's recommendation (and inclusion) of the total international bond index fund in their target date retirement funds. Is this something you would recommend as part of one's core bond holdings since it increases diversification, could decrease volatility and is hedged?

Q: On Saturday and Sunday most of the money programs are recommending indexed annuities and boast low fees less than 1% that earn 5+%. educate me please.

Why are dangerous investments popular? I have never met anyone who honestly stated that taking risk was something they enjoyed. Sure, we would love high returns with low risk, but no one wants a potentially dangerous investment. So, why are the five products listed in in a recent Wall Street Journal article selling so well?

Bonds are on the minds of a lot of people these days. We hear the touts in the financial media tell us: “Sell bonds now! Interest rates are going up! We are in a bond bubble!”.

With all the excitement over stocks and bonds and their ups and downs in headline news, there is a key concept often overlooked. Market returns are compensation for providing the financial capital that feeds the human enterprise going on all around us, all the time. 

This week let’s focus on a critical problem for many in the grasshopper camp—overspending and debt. A recent article by DaVida Plummer at CNBC.com discusses this issue. She talks about “compulsive buying” as a topic of academic research. According to the research nearly 7 percent of Americans are compulsive buyers.

Our approach to investing was forged in the fires of peer-reviewed academic research. It has been hammered, folded, hardened, and honed by economic scientists testing and retesting previous results and assumptions.

With interest rates historically low, fear of bonds has gripped the market for the past couple of years. Many investors abandoned their existing investment plans (or had none to begin with), and sold off their bond funds.

Most of us remember Aesop’s fable “The Ant and the Grasshopper”. During the summer the grasshopper plays while the ant works, taking food back to the ant colony to store it for the winter. The grasshopper doesn’t understand why the ant doesn’t play since food is plentiful during the summer.

What do telephones and investing have in common?What began as a leading-edge notion has evolved so dramatically in response to new insights that it can sometimes be difficult to see the enduring connections between what a thing was versus what it has become. 

One of the best arguments for a universal fiduciary standard for the entire financial advice industry is a powerful expose of the deplorable behavior of the bulk of those providing investment advice to those who are retiring with large 401k portfolios undertaken by Bloomberg.

There are some people who just can’t stand the “F” word. I’m not one of them. I want everyone to use the “F” word as often as possible, particularly those who hate it most; stockbrokers and insurance agents (who sell “investments”). This particular “F” word is good for you and potentially bad for them. 

The financial media has been screaming about a bond bubble or Bondageddon.  This hysteria is leading people to question why they hold bonds since interest rates “must” go up and bond prices “must” go down.

Like a bucking bronco, near-term market returns are characterized more by periods of wild volatility than by a steady-as-she-goes trot. Diversification helps you tame the beast, because, as any rider knows, it doesn’t matter how high you can jump. If you fall out of the saddle, you’re going to get left in the dust. 

The biggest roadblocks to financial independence are behavioral.  We know that overspending and debt will lead us to the poorhouse (Dickens anyone?).  But if we live below our means and build a well-thought our financial plan, are we home free?  Have we overcome the behaviors that block our road to financial freedom?  Not necessarily!

Many “investors” start by focusing on the potential returns on their chosen investments - they put the cart before the horse and are destined to crash upon the rocks of failed investment ideas by following the sirens’ call of desired returns.