Guarding Wealth: Keeping your financial portfolio stable

Guarding Wealth: Keeping your financial portfolio stable

How much risk do you want in your portfolio, and will risk bring you higher returns?

Choosing stocks and bonds is in some ways like picking the petals off a daisy. The choice: will it be regular income or capital gains (hopefully)? Some investment assets pay regular income. In this category are conventional bonds that promise annual or semi-annual interest payments and dividend-paying stocks that make no firm promises but that […] Read more

Guarding Wealth: Changes ahead for 2017

Guarding Wealth: Changes ahead for 2017

Rising interest rates and the Trump Effect 
bring uncertainties in the New Year

If investing were easy, we’d all be rich. Today, capital markets have many new uncertainties. Top of the list: the Trump Effect. That is, what the new President may do after his inauguration on January 20. Also worrisome is where Europe is going if other members of the EU follow the United Kingdom out of […] Read more


Magnifying glass on newspaper

Guarding Wealth: Canadian interest rates to rise

But don’t hold your breath — any big rate moves are at least 18 months ahead

To quote the most recent winner of the Nobel Prize for literature, Bob Dylan, “the times, they are a-changin’.” In capital markets, the U.S. Federal Reserve Board is likely to raise the interest rate it charges banks to borrow money overnight to maintain reserves — a key indicator for all other interest rates in the economy. This increase […] Read more

A six-month marketing check in

A six-month marketing check in

Looking back at recent market movements, what should you have done?

Looking back over the last six months, how did you do from a marketing perspective? The fastest way to assess this is to look at a couple of commodity price charts. You can find these charts and more online for free at tradingcharts.com. Wheat price First, let’s look at May Minneapolis wheat futures (see chart at […] Read more


stock quote chart

Learn to read the market signs

Guarding Wealth: Two distinct schools of stock market price prediction are taken on faith

It is said that the future is written in the past. For investors, that means looking backward to see where the future lies. On the one hand, it seems silly. After all, if you are driving down the road, looking backward is downright hazardous. But if you are an investor, you have to look to […] Read more

grain bins surrounded by snow

Your winter grain marketing plan

Watch the futures spread and the cost of carry to decide when to sell your grain

This winter, you should have time to take stock of your grain inventory, update your cost of production numbers and do some math to determine your true break-even costs. Do you have a marketing plan? Are you using it or reviewing it and making changes accordingly? Do you know your quantity and quality of your […] Read more


stock market display

The difference between mutual funds and exchange traded funds

This look inside mutual funds and exchange traded funds shows how each of these investment types work, and how each of them handle risk

How do mutual funds really work? At the ground level, they are diversified collections of assets, usually stocks or bonds — sometimes both — in balanced funds, picked for their ability to generate income and/or capital gains. The key word is “diversified,” for that is their distinctive advantage. They are usually actively managed to seize […] Read more

financial market chart

Investing in financial markets

In Part 1 of this new series on financial management basis, Andrew Allentuck explains how to choose a manager for your money

Warren Buffett, the tycoon from Omaha who became America’s second richest billionaire after Bill Gates, quipped that investing is simple but not necessarily easy. The simplicity is understanding relatively few things very, very well. The job entails both researching each business he buys and having the guts to stick to rules he traces back to Ben […] Read more