Today many investment advisors and individual investors use ETFs or exchange-traded funds rather than, or in addition to, individual stocks and bonds or mutual funds. Today about 25% of all equity dollar volume is accounted for by trading in ETFs. Most of that volume is concentrated into relatively few ETFs. Given that ETFs are typically designed to track certain indexes, […]
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Three Goals for Better Interpersonal Communication
It is almost the end of February, pretty late into the year to be setting New Year’s resolutions. Goals, however, can be set at any time, and I have set 3 goals to improve my communication efforts in 2014. Don’t take word choice for granted. Keep it simple is my motto! The best word to articulate a situation, emotion or […]
Read moreOpt Out with Your Eyes Open
Lean In, Opt Out, how do you decide what is best for you and your family? Most often when women make the decision to opt out they make it alone – no advisor, no realtor, no car dealer, no agent. We don’t sit down and think, “What is the price of this decision, in today’s dollars and over my lifetime, […]
Read moreLift Yourself Up Financially
“I could lift you up. I could show you what you wanna see. And take you where you wanna be.” Capital Cities – Safe and Sound Investors might not be feeling quite as safe sound after the way the stock market started 2014 (down about 5% ytd as I am writing this) as they did back in the good old days of 2013. […]
Read moreRecruiting Help for Commodity Positions
No one would argue that a new VP of Sales or Operations is a key hire. After all, they probably have a hefty six-figure salary and will manage hundreds of staff members. The impact of a bad hire is potentially very high. Compare that to a commodity role like a call center agent: one person out of a team of […]
Read more2013 Markets & What’s in Store for 2014
2013 was a great year for U.S. stock markets and most stock investors. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended the year with a 26.5% gain closing 2013 at 16,576.66. The S&P 500 index was up over 29% for the biggest gain since 1997. There were some hugely under-performing sectors in 2013, metals and mining being one of the biggest losers. Gold […]
Read moreNon-profit giving – Healthier, Happier and Better Looking
Healthier, happier and better looking are some of the benefits of giving to a non-profit. Or so says Arthur Brooks from the American Enterprise Institute in a recent article Handsome Is As Handsome Gives. America is exceptional in its giving because, according to Mr. Brooks, “Americans still give away more than the entire gross domestic product of prosperous countries such […]
Read moreTale of Two Cities – Detroit & Dallas
By now, most have probably seen the headlines that a federal judge Steven Rhodes has ruled to allow the city of Detroit to proceed with a bankruptcy filing. The ruling will be appealed, but it promises to have a big negative impact on the city’s pension benefits, retiree health coverage and its municipal bonds creditors. Here are a few interesting […]
Read moreA Writer’s Thanksgiving
Writing is hard work. Whether you write a blog, a cover letter or an email, staring down a blank sheet of paper is like willing yourself to run an 8-miler the day after Thanksgiving. You know you really should do it – it would be good for you, too – but there are so many other things you would rather […]
Read morePay it Forward – Networking Open Job Positions
As a recruiter, I know the importance of networking. I not only fill my open jobs but actively network with people within my communities whether it is our internal database or the various social media outlets. I think most recruiters truly understand the value in networking and we wish that others would as well. When I have an open position […]
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