Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) can be a great investment vehicle for small and large investors alike. These popular funds, which are similar to mutual funds but trade like stocks, have become a popular choice among investors looking to broaden the diversity of their portfolios without increasing the time and effort that they have to spend managing

If you have never worked or paid Social Security taxes (or didn’t pay them for long enough), you won’t be eligible to claim Social Security retirement benefits on your own account. However, you may be able to receive spousal benefits through your spouse’s account. You can file a claim under their account as early as

If you’re interested in retirement – either because you are planning your own, or because you find the subject fascinating – you might have wondered if you can share your knowledge in a formal way. The good news is that this is certainly possible – there are courses that help people learn about retirement, led

A home equity loan—also known as an equity loan, home equity installment loan, or second mortgage—is a type of consumer debt. Home equity loans allow homeowners to borrow against the equity in their homes. The loan amount is based on the difference between the home’s current market value and the homeowner’s mortgage balance due. Because

If you’re looking at the investment options available in your 401(k) and are overwhelmed by your range of choices, you should count yourself lucky. Many 401(k) plans offer only very limited investment options, and some encourage participants to invest heavily in your own company’s stock.  You might not feel lucky, of course, as you scroll

If your employer offers a 401(k) plan, this can be a very effective way of saving for retirement. The money you put in your plan is “tax-deferred,” so you won’t pay income tax on it for the year you earn it. Instead, you’ll be taxed when you take it out of your 401(k) account during

Investors seeking exposure to the driverless car revolution now have the option of buying into exchange-traded funds (ETFs) specifically dedicated to driverless cars, electric vehicles, and other innovations in the automobile industry. Among this class of ETFs are KraneShares Electric Vehicles and Future Mobility ETF (KARS), which debuted in January of 2018; InnovationShares NextGen Vehicle and

If you need to access some of the money you’ve built up in your 401(k), you can use a short-term loan that you will pay back with money from your paychecks. Borrowing from your 401(k) can often be a better alternative to getting money than using higher-interest loans like title loans, payday loans, or even

If you have a 401(k) plan, you are probably aware that you can use it to invest in a wide variety of funds – target-date funds, passively managed index funds, and actively managed mutual funds. Some plans, however, also allow you to access other types of financial product, such as annuities. An annuity is a

U.S. stocks continued to claw their way back last week, especially growth stocks. For the week, the Nasdaq posted a gain of 2.2% and the S&P 500 rose 0.4%. The Dow? Not so much, sliding just 0.1%. A blowout jobs report for July offered up another dose of good news for the economy and not-so-good

The Russell 1000 Index is a market-capitalization-weighted index of the 1,000 largest publicly traded companies in the U.S. It represents approximately 92% of the total market capitalization of all listed stocks in the U.S. equity market. For this reason, it is considered a bellwether for large-cap investing. Some of the largest companies in the index