For many of us, the hope is to glide into retirement sometime in our early to mid-60s. After 40-plus years of hard work, it’s time to enjoy the fruits of our labor — on our own terms. Except when things outside of our control derail those well-laid p

Investment benchmarks are kind of like all those random signs you pass on the road. Sometimes, they’re informational. Sometimes, they’re entertaining. But all too often, they’re just downright distracting. And if you put too much focus on the wrong o

Wall Street’s underlying worries about the resilience of the economic recovery were given room to roam Tuesday thanks to a dearth of significant new positive data. COVID-related hospitalizations are rising across much of the Sun Belt, and yesterday o

The rise of low-cost index funds and ETFs over the last decade or two has revolutionized the way people invest. However, while a lot of folks are content to simply "buy the market" with indexed long-term holdings, investors still have their choice of

Ryan Ermey: Whether you're looking for sunshine and surf or snow and solitude, you probably have a pretty good idea of where you want to retire, but will it be wallet-friendly? Sandy breaks down our cover story on our favorite money-

The rise in online real estate investing in recent years has been remarkable. As the global consulting firm EY estimates, the online real estate investing market worldwide is expected to be $8.3 billion in 2020, with no sign of slowing. For all the

When the market plummeted on March 9, for the first time since 2008, I was on a beach in North Carolina, watching my 3-year-old chase seagulls. It was supposed to be a “mental health” day. My wife’s boss had generously lent us her beach house for a

Stocks shot out of the blocks Monday morning, ignoring continued COVID-19 surges across many states, and instead drawing strength from China. The state-owned China Securities Journal ran a front-page editorial pumping up the importance of a "healthy

As an advocate for young adults prudently beginning their investing journey as soon as possible, I’ve found it difficult to shake this recent story: A young man from Illinois took his own life less than 24 hours after checking his Robinhood account a

Income investors love dividend stocks for their regular payouts; any stock-price appreciation is just gravy. The Kiplinger Dividend 15, the list of our favorite dividend-paying stocks, delivers on the first front, yielding 3.7%, on average, compared

Warren Buffett is back to rummaging through the bargain bin, striking a multi-billion deal for some energy assets. The Oracle of Omaha has taken some heat over the past few months for only unloading stocks and not spending any of Berkshire Hathaway's

So, you have been laid off or left your previous employer. This transitional period may be full of decisions, such as balancing unemployment insurance, health care insurance, and other important life decisions. Of course, retirement planning is still

It hasn’t been a good year for landlords. Publicly traded real estate investment trusts—which own income-producing real estate—have been clobbered in 2020, with the category overall losing 13.6%, compared with a 5.0% loss for the S&P 500 index. When

In March 2020, COVID-19 began to ravage the United States, putting the nation into lockdown and skyrocketing unemployment. Entering a bear market for the first time in 11 years, stocks plummeted by 30% on March 23, a substantial drop from its record

Traders will enjoy a long holiday weekend away from their desks. That's because the stock market is closed Friday, July 3, in observation of Independence Day; the fourth of July falls on a Saturday this year. Bond traders not only get all of Friday o

Though most recent graduates aren’t technically millennials, both Gen Zers and millennials who are new to the job market face unprecedented challenges in 2020. Hiring has picked up as the  economy reopens, but even so, the class of 2020 is entering o

After the stock market began its plunge in mid-March, investors hurried to find out if their portfolios could withstand the steep drop and what to do next.  Now, several weeks later, we’ve all exhaled as the market has gradually recovered. Fortunate

China has faced daunting challenges this year. Hong Kong erupted in political protests, COVID-19 got its start in Wuhan, relations with the U.S. deteriorated sharply, and the economy shrank 6.8% in the first quarter, nearly two points worse than the

Not all that long ago, the only major decision the Federal Reserve Board had to make was where to set short-term interest rates. But in the past decade, the Fed has become increasingly aggressive in its efforts to pump up the economy—and there’s no s

Dayna Ford is senior director-analyst for Gartner, a market research firm. She focuses on digital wallets and other forms of electronic payment. Electronic payments have soared since the pandemic began. Do you expect that trend to continue after the

Leah Gordon, 43, lives in Hugo, Minn., and directs the nurse anesthetist program at St. Mary's University of Minnesota. Kiplinger's talked to her about the challenges created by COVID 19 for nurse anesthetists and the problem student nurses--and the

As the country dealt with the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic this spring, lawmakers and regulators scrambled to ease the pain of record job losses and other blows to Americans’ pocketbooks and health. One result that has largely flown under th

Choosing a place to spend your retirement years has never been easy, but these days, it’s particularly challenging. The coronavirus pandemic has caused some retirees to rethink plans to move to urban or suburban walkable communities. But rural commun

A pair of encouraging jobs reports helped the major indices close in the black Thursday, and drove the Nasdaq Composite to yet another record-high finish. Early Thursday, the Labor Department reported that the U.S. added 4.8 million jobs in June to e

This isn’t about you, Northern Virginia. On second thought, maybe it is. We must be going. Not right now, but when we retire. My wife and I have found a lot to like about our bedroom community near Washington, D.C. Access to the best of the arts, the

While stocks can supercharge a portfolio, getting income out of an all-stock portfolio is difficult. Withdrawing at the wrong time can cause an investor to sell at a significant loss, hurting long-term returns. Then there is the tax issue: With long-

The pandemic has put the health care industry under a global spotlight. Biotechnology and big pharmaceutical firms are front and center as the world races toward a vaccine for COVID-19. There may be many winners, and there may be a few losers, but th

Stocks have rallied so sharply in the past few months that it prompts a question: Are we in a new bull market? With the S&P 500 index up 36% since its March 23 low through mid June, the answer seems an obvious yes. And yet, plenty of veteran Wall Str

Stocks struggled for direction on the first trading day of the second half, as promising news about a possible COVID-19 vaccine and better economic data were tempered by a drop in energy stocks. A reading that showed U.S. manufacturing activity hit i

Many businesses have taken at least a short-term hit from the COVID-19 economic shutdown, but a few fortuitously positioned companies have actually thrived. And arguably the biggest winners have been so-called work-from-home, or WFH, stocks. Many tec