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Dear Dave, My husband and I are just starting Baby Step one of your plan. Prior to this, we told my two nephews we would buy them laptop computers for college. They don’t get a lot of encouragement or support from their immediate family, so we try to...

The combination of a long bull market, high valuations, rising interest rates and increased volatility can make investors nervous about putting money to work in the market. But many of those sitting on cash missed out on huge gains in stocks. There a...

When I started out as a strategist more than 30 years ago, I had the arrogance of youth, a long-term investing horizon and less wealth to worry about. Those three qualities worked well then, but not so much now. I have the wealth to enable a comfort...

A number of United States investment market index milestones were reached in the last few months. According to TD Ameritrade — MarketWatch in early January, 2018 “retail investor exposure to stock markets is at an all-time high”. This participation ...

Dear Dave, I’ve started your personal finance course in high school, so I’m asking this for the entire class. What happens to your debt if you pass away with no relatives or heirs to take responsibility for what you owed? — Elizabeth Dear Elizabeth,...

How well did you do? Twenty-five test questions were provided in this column on March 3 and 10. I’m expecting to hear from readers that they aced the test, because you should know that I went easy on you all. No fractions, statistics, or algebra. ...

The return of volatility in the first quarter versus 2017 was our focus last week. Some interesting pushback followed the premise that prices seem to ignore news sometimes and at other times hang on every headline. My explanation: most people have th...

Dear Dave, How do you sell a vehicle with a lien amount that’s higher than the actual value of the car? — Michael Dear Michael, First, you need to find a way to cover the difference between the amount of the lien and what you can get for the car. Le...

This is the first in the series of monthly Pondstraddler Life™ Financial Perspectives Reader FAQ. Last week’s article, entitled “Are you a Pondstraddler”, invited interested readers with international connection concerns to take the Pondstraddler Qu...

One of the most frequent lines of questioning I receive from readers is to do with islanders’ increasing interconnection with the outside world — and all of its rules and regulations. In response to that, the Moneywise column, on the last Saturday of...

Why do workers in the financial industry get paid so much? There are many possible explanations, none of them completely satisfying. The financial industry commands a much larger share of the US economy than in the past, causing some to worry that th...

Dear Dave, I’m about to graduate from college, and while I’ve been in school my mom has been handling most of my finances. Recently, I discovered she’s been taking my student loan money and spending it on herself. So far, it looks like she’s taken ar...