Investing For Beginners – Free Investment Articles and Tutorials

No one will dispute that investors are entitled to receive objective advice when they consult an investment advisor. Advisors should serve only one master -- their clients -- and no one else, if for no other reason but that they are paid for that...

Congratulations! Your newest client is a company retirement plan. Now let's talk about your newest responsibilities under ERISA - the Employee Retirement Security Act of 1974. Most brokers know that ERISA covers large company pension plans. But many...

Most stockbrokers and financial planners work hard to earn an honest day's pay. Unfortunately, too many do not do so. As a result, investors need to be alert for abuse. How can investors protect themselves? Before we discuss our 15-point checklist,...

A loan may have been to buy a car, finance a child's education of university still pay back the mortgage. Although this means that you can never really have to go without the money due to the availability of both cash ready with their own terms of course,...

There are many changes in store for the financial services industry in recent years. Some of these changes will be good, and some of them bad, for investors. The Gramm-Leach Biley Act of 1999 officially terminated the Glass Steagall Act (which had...

Consider the Bad Advice Regarding Employee Stock Options As a "Millennium Prediction", I predicted that brokerage firms increasingly would make mistakes as they ventured into financial planning areas. One and one-half years into the new millennium, we...

Stockbrokers Must Perform Their "Due Diligence" Before They Invest Your Money As stockbrokers and other advisers search for investments to beat the current flat market, they are turning to alternative investments such as hedge funds, private equity...

Margin investing is speculative and involves high risk. That is why most investors should not buy stocks on margin. But for those who do, NASD Regulation, Inc., has issued important investor guidance about purchasing securities on margin, and the risks...

It's hard not to read a daily newspaper without noticing a news story about a broker or brokerage firm doing something wrong. Consider some of the recent news: Frank Gruttadauria of Lehman Brothers purportedly created phony account statements to dupe...

Mutual funds are not supposed to be traded, or bought and sold regularly. They are meant to be held as long term investments. Indeed, securities regulators presume that a switch between mutual funds is unsuitable. Brokers have the burden of rebutting that...