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Negotiating the management of your parents’ bank account might be even tougher than taking away their car keys. But ignoring the problem—even if you’re respecting your parents’ wishes—can mean that bills don’t get paid, or they get paid twice and the checks bounce. Even worse, your parents could ...Read More

When times are tough, it’s too easy to put tax management issues on the back burner. Sheltering your investment profits from taxes may seem like a remote concern when your accounts are a sea of red ink. And you may feel you have more pressing demands on your ...Read More

By KAREN BLUMENTHAL Life should be simpler in retirement. So should your finances. A clear-cut financial plan is a good idea at any age. But a growing body of research suggests simplicity takes on added urgency as we move into our 70s, when stock-picking acumen begins to slip. ...Read More

By JASON ZEIG Even if you’ve already joined the mad dash to diversify into foreign stocks, you may still have a warped view of the investing world. In Saul Steinberg’s famous illustration for a 1976 cover of the New Yorker magazine, a few blocks of Manhattan loom large ...Read More

The UK economy has come out of recession, after figures showed it had grown by a weaker-than-expected 0.1% in the last three months of 2009. The economy had previously contracted for six consecutive quarters - the longest period since quarterly figures were first recorded in 1955. There have ...Read More

Is cash really safe? Everybody knows the risks of keeping too much money in the stock market. And if inflation rears its head again they may rediscover the risks of keeping too much money in bonds, as well. But what about cash vehicles–savings accounts, money market accounts and ...Read More

By ANNA WILDE MATHEWS Disability-insurance benefits from the workplace and the government are getting harder to come by—and that’s putting more pressure on consumers to purchase their own coverage in case a medical condition keeps them from working. But disability insurance can be confusing. Policies may include conditions ...Read More

It now costs more to insure Californian municipal debt against default than it does bonds issued by the government of Kazakhstan, the central Asian country satirized in “Borat.” That is neither a joke nor hyperbole. Californian munis cost 2.6% of face value per year to insure, reports CMA ...Read More

Officials of the International Monetary Fund are to visit Greece this week to help the government as it struggles to restore the country’s battered economy. Finance Ministry officials in Athens said they asked the IMF for assistance. The publicity machine of Greece’s new socialist government denied the visit ...Read More

By KAREN BLUMENTHAL Still mulling over your New Year’s financial resolutions? David Laibson, a Harvard University economics professor, has one for you—one that many of us may wish we’d made last year. “Promise that you’ll never try to time the market again,” he suggests, a not-too-subtle gibe at ...Read More