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Should you be investing in toilet paper?

Markets crash all the time. You should, at minimum, expect stocks to fall at least 10% once a year, 20% once every few years, 30% or more once or twice a decade, and 50% or more once or twice during your lifetime. Those who don't understand this will eventually learn it the hard way.

Someone emailed me last week asking why this is:

Most working Americans have no clue how prepared their parents are for retirement, a knowledge gap that could hurt their own finances.

About 7 in 10 adults between 25 and 44 years old said they know little to nothing about their parents’ finances. But nearly the same share expect they will need to financially help their parents if they outlive their savings.

You've probably heard of an alpha wolf, but what about an alpha manager? This is the kind of financial adviser that everyone planning an estate should be working with.

Having a trusted financial advisor can make a huge difference in your future. But is your advisor strengthening the likelihood of achieving your goals or the opposite? Here's how to decide when it's time to say, "You're fired."

We meet with retirees and pre-retirees every week, many of whom tell us they have been "working with a retirement-planning firm for years." Yet, when we dig into their "plan," there is often not much more than a diversified pie chart of stocks, bonds and mutual funds.

Do you look forward to a large tax refund? If so, you are willingly giving the IRS a tax free loan. Check your withholding to make sure you are being efficient with your hard earned paycheck!

Congress has passed significant changes to retirement savings law that will affect individuals in or nearing retirement, new parents, small business owners and employees, and could have a major impact on estate planning.

Being realistic about investment performance will help you stay on track.

In an ideal world, would you prefer your investments to perform worse than expected, as expected, or better than expected?

I suspect, for both the short and the long term, you’d prefer them to do better than expected.