The Utopia fund family in a dramatic move registered with the SEC to liquidate all of it's mutual funds as of December 22nd, 2008. With a -47% YTD return and only $30 million in assets, the Utopia Growth Fund is a not large enough to survive the...

The most heartbreaking part of this bear market is the untold number of investor's retirement accounts being decimated. I have spoken with dozens of investors with 401(k) and IRAs, and the universal comments I receive is "I refuse to open my statements...

As more investors come to grips with the fact that there will be no quick rebound from this bear market, it's time to see where we are. The chart below (of the S&P 500) shows that from the October 2007 highs through November 2008, that all the gains...

The market volatility is at unprecedented levels. For our personal and client portfolios, we're recommending a market exposure of about 30%. This way, even if the market goes down another -50%, the loss in your personal portfolio will only be about -15%....

On Monday many of my friends began asking me if the 11% rise in the Dow Jones meant the market had bottomed. Some even suggested now was the time to get it. I suggested to them that the market was oversold and we were due for a rally. Most importantly...

As the bear market continues to wipe out mutual fund investors I thought now would be good time to revisit the buy and hold fairy tale. This fairy tale has friends of mine continuing to hold their mutual funds as their retirement savings are devastated....

Contrary to most investor's understanding we have been in a bear market after the peak in 2000. The bear market is still in effect because the S&P 500 did not exceed the high from 2000. As the yearly chart of the S&P 500 shows, from 2003-2007,...

Mutual funds are touted as the ideal investment for the average investor because of professional money management, diversification, and a host of other benefits. I decided to see how the "professionals' are doing in this bear market. I went to the ...

Having a hard time getting your arms around the subprime crisis , how it started, and what the problems are? The folks at Wikipedia have created a comprehensive diagram that shows the causes and effect of the crisis. The image is very large so click...

The last time the US economy suffered a calamity anywhere close to the subprime mess was in 1989 with the Savings & Loan Crisis . During that crisis, 747 banks failed with the US consumer paying $124 billion of the $160 billion total bailout cost....