Blonch

One of my hiking buddies stays in shape through the year by working out at a fitness gym plus he takes a yoga class a couple of times per week. Those provide a good variety of work on flexibility, strength, and endurance training. They also have an ongoing cost for participation, beyond the time commitment.

I have taken a different approach. I bought a Wii with the FIT board and program. I am working my way through its yoga, strength, balance, and cardio exercises/games. I paid for it once, and now use it. As I spend more time on it and improve my performance it rewards me by …

The stock market liked what it heard today – despite a net loss of 247,000 jobs in July, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate fell from 9.5% to 9.4%. Never mind that the declining unemployment rate is due to 422,000 people without work abandoning the job search after months of disappointment.

I have been mentoring a friend of mine who wanted to take control of his 401k plan and manage his investments rather than choosing from the standard mutual funds that have performed poorly in the past year or so. As I have shown him the mechanics of expanding the choices in his plan and discussed [...]

Yesterday President Obama announced the (forced) resignation of GM’s long-tenured CEO and Chairman, Rick Wagoner along, with a demand that the company take stronger action in restructuring in the next 60 days or face bankruptcy. At the same time he guaranteed both GM and Chrysler’s warranty programs and provided interim funding to keep both companies going, albeit on different paths as he announced the arranged marriage for Chrysler with Fiat in the next 30 days. This is huge news in economics, investments, politics, and nearly any other arena. Rush Limbaugh weighed in with the retail store policy, “if you break it you bought it.” President Obama just took away GM’s leadership and then said “you have to do better, and quickly.” If the President is promising sweeping changes in taxes, regulation, and health care to go along with taking control of businesses that are too large to fail, how does anyone plan for and invest in the future without knowing what the ground rules are going to be? The markets reacted strongly to yesterday’s announcements, broadly losing over 3%.

In response to the economic crisis, Congressional Democrats unveiled H.R. 1, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, also known as the Stimulus bill. After several weeks of debate, a $787 billion package filled with an array of funding for government healthcare, education, energy, and infrastructure programs was agreed upon.

The Stimulus bill passed on a party line vote, with all but three Senate Republicans opposing the bill, and was signed into law on February 17, 2009. I strongly opposed H.R. 1 for three primary reasons.

My employer sponsors a 401k plan with investment options in company stock or selected mutual funds. There are good reasons to not put all of your retirement investments in company stock, but the mutual funds offered in the traditional plan may not cover all the investment vehicles you want to use. Please be aware that this traditional “Prototype” fund may not be your only choice.

For example, Fidelity’s “Non-Prototype” BrokerageLink™ program allows investments in stocks, bonds, exchange traded funds (ETFs), and more, depending on your experience and expertise.

Investors look for ways to make money in return for use of their money. There seem to be no limits on the kinds of investments that can be thought up. Business cycles show up in interest rates, economic growth (Gross Domestic Product [GDP]), unemployment, monetary growth, and inflation. In the U.S. our banking system is regulated by the federal government which delegated much of the oversight and administration to the Federal Reserve (the Fed) central banking system. Rest assured, the government is taking care of things for you.