If you’re a grandparent looking to save the day by helping your grandchildren pay for college, take a second look at a tax-advantaged 529 college savings plan before the end of the year. Rule changes ...
Tag: Commentary/Opinion
Opinion: Pain and losses in crypto will clear out the losers and strengthen the case for bitcoin
Cryptocurrency is a mess right now. And rightly so. I wrote about buying bitcoin for MarketWatch in 2013 when it was trading for $100, but I’ve spent the past year or so warning that most newer crypto...
One reason the rich get richer
Legend has it that Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald disagreed about the rich. Fitzgerald, who had stars in his eyes, supposedly said, “The rich are different from the rest of us.” “Yes,” repli...
‘It’s a touchy subject’: My in-laws live in our basement. They gave us our 20% down payment. Should we charge them for renovations?
Last year, my husband and I approached my in-laws to see if they wanted to live with us. We had learned that my father-in-law had terminal cancer but could still live five to seven years in remission,...
Opinion: A switch to ‘premium’ can keep you invested amid the tech wreck in stocks
It seems as if the stock market is punishing all technology companies regardless of performance. That underlines a set of opportunities for long-term investors. There were many eyes on this cycle of t...
If I sell my rental I can pay off my primary mortgage and be debt-free. Is that a good idea in this housing market?
Dear MarketWatch, I have a rental property that’s worth $175,000, and I owe $53,000. My primary home is worth $265,000 and has $108,000 left on the mortgage. My question is this: Should I sell my ren...
‘This has gone on too long’: The bank paid itself $18,000 in fees. My late father’s trust has not been distributed. What recourse do I have?
My father’s father set up a trust at a major bank with my father and the bank’s trust department as co-trustees. My father died at the end of last year; upon his death, the trust was supposed to be di...
‘Am I being ripped off?’ I moved into my husband’s home. I pay for groceries. The rental income from my apartment goes into our joint savings.
I read one of your previous columns regarding the boyfriend who wants the letter writer to move in. My case is similar, but we have already made a decision on how to structure our finances as they rel...
U.S. Treasury sweetens the pot on I-bonds by adding a fixed rate
After record-breaking sales of I-bonds in October, the U.S. Treasury is dangling another good deal in front of savers for the next six months. Starting Nov. 2, when I-bonds will be available again af...
Opinion: Oil companies can’t just ‘drill baby drill’ at will. Here’s what it really takes to ramp up energy production.
As energy prices rage, President Biden and Republicans have urged companies to increase drilling to lower oil and gasoline prices from 14-year highs. But it’s not that simple. Even after permits are a...
Opinion: A seasonal stock market trade that tends to be reliable begins Thursday
The stock market has broken through technical resistance, and as a result the rally is trying to extend itself. Specifically, the S&P 500’s SPX, +2.46% close above 3800 points was a strong technic...
Why I don’t want I-bonds
There’s been such a rush to buy “I-bonds,” inflation-protected bonds from the U.S. government, that the TreasuryDirect website crashed. I-bonds have been one of the hottest investments of the year. Pe...
‘When we dated for 5 years, he implied he was financially secure’: My husband was always hesitant about his finances. Now I know why.
Dear Quentin, My husband and I make about the same salary, and live modestly. Six months after we married, I found out my husband’s net worth is virtually zero. He owes more money than he has assets (...
Opinion: There’s a rush to buy I-bonds to lock in a high yield, but there may be an even better deal next week
It’s hard to imagine that there could be a better deal for parking up to $10,000 in savings than Series I bonds, at this very moment. The 9.62% yield is top-notch, and you can count the hours before i...
Millions of working Americans are living paycheck-to-paycheck — and running out of cash as another recession looms
Inflation is taking its toll on people’s emergency funds. The share of workers who say they are living paycheck-to-paycheck has surged among middle- to high-income earners — 63% and 49%, respectively ...
Young investors can retire rich—or super rich — by following these steps
Real life provides us with literally millions of individual financial scenarios, making it hard to dish out blanket investment advice. But if you’re in your early or mid 20s, you have a golden opportu...
My boyfriend has a nicer house, and says I should live with him. My mortgage is paid off. He believes I should pay half of his monthly costs. Is that fair?
Dear Quentin, My boyfriend owns a house with a 30-year mortgage balance of $150,000 on a 4% interest rate. He has $275,000 in cash and retirement accounts. He is retired. My house is paid off. I have ...
Personal savings have plunged — how to boost your savings in case of a recession
As red flags go, this is a big one. The personal savings of Americans have plunged this year, hitting $629 billion in the second quarter of 2022, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St....
How bad could it get for your 401(k)?
Probably the best argument for investing some more of our 401(k)s in the stock market right now is all the people telling us not to. As a general rule, it’s been a good time to be bullish when so many...
Warren Buffett’s chip-stock purchase is a classic example of why you want to be ‘greedy only when others are fearful’
This has been quite a year for Berkshire Hathaway and CEO Warren Buffett. The conglomerate just disclosed its investments in other companies as of the end of the third quarter, and one name — and one ...