Gail MarksJarvis

You'd be hard-pressed to find a "hot commodity" lately. With the U.S. housing market giving investors a scare, China's building boom facing some restraint, Iran apparently less of an immediate threat to oil supplies, and hurricanes failing to howl,...

Not all retailers are going to be rewarded equally this holiday shopping season. Investors in retailing stocks are increasingly concerned about which stores may suffer from lackluster sales and stock performance. For every expected winner likeAmerican...

The Dow Jones industrial average did it. After an up-and-down 6 ½ years, the Dow closed above the 12,000 mark for the first time on Thursday. But what does that mean for your favorite mutual fund? Perhaps very little. If you have had a pet U.S. stock...

Investment manager Louis Holland, of Holland Capital Management, posed the right question on a looming national retirement crisis. In essence, it was this: Given the fact that 43 percent of Americans are on their way to having less retirement income than...

Look at your paycheck, and imagine what it will look like next year, the year after that and maybe in 10, 20 or 30 years into the future. Do you see bonds? Perhaps not, but in essence, that's what you are looking at, said Roger Ibbotson, a Yale...

Edward Laginess enjoys sipping his midmorning coffee on an expansive veranda overlooking mountains near Palm Springs, Calif., and living the life that dreams are made of. It's his second home, in a midrise condominium complex filled with people like him-...

If you like the ease of index investing, you would think investing throughout the world would be snap. Instead of worrying whether you had too much or too little exposure to developed countries or emerging countries, you'd pick one index for the entire...

If the holiday spirit has you feeling benevolent, you can put your good intentions to work during the next couple of weeks and save yourself money when you sit down with your tax return next year. Giving to charity is a simple way to earn a tax...

When corporate earnings have been climbing at a double-digit rate for a historic 18 quarters in a row and are projected to climb at close to 10 percent in the next year, it's tough to sing the blues. And most of Wall Street is not. The consensus for...

With a couple more days left of the winter school break, and parents scrounging for ideas to keep children from bouncing off the walls, you might want to provide a lesson in investing. So I am going to relate suggestions readers provided a couple of...

Tom Rowan is five years away from retiring and struggling with the same question that arises for most Americans as they approach retirement: How much can retirees pull out of their savings each year, and still have enough money left to last a lifetime?...

Q: My 10-year-old son is suddenly excited about the stock market, and he's bugging me to teach him about investing. I thought I'd put some money in a mutual fund for him, and have him match it. But I'm having trouble finding a fund that will accept less...