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Welcome to Money-Smarts, MsMoney.com's weekly newsletter of financial facts, features, and tools. Money-Smarts is designed to provide quick and useful information to help secure your financial future. Enjoy, and tell a friend about MsMoney.com! |
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In This Week's Issue: |
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Market Summary for Friday, February 23: |
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Close |
Net Change |
Percent Change |
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DJIA |
10439.87 |
-86.94 |
-0.83% |
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NASDAQ |
2262.49 |
+17.53 |
+17.53% |
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S&P 500 |
1245.71 |
-7.11 |
-0.57% |
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30-Year Bond |
5.49% |
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N/A |
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Source: Reuters |
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Tips for the Week: Daily Advice to Help Get You Through the Week |
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Monday: To combat inflation risk, consider investing in growth-oriented securities. Just how large a portion you should invest in equities is best determined by your investment goals, time horizon, and tolerance for market risk. Learn more about investing in stocks. Tuesday: It’s not enough to be doing a good job today; you have to prepare yourself for the future by keeping abreast of new innovations in your field and readying yourself for the next step in your career path. Learn more about keeping one step ahead in your career. Wednesday: Investments with the greatest return potential carry the greatest amount of risk. Likewise, investments with conservative returns are generally the least risky. The key is to strike a balance between your financial objectives and your ability to tolerate market risk. Learn more about the risk/return trade-off. Thursday: Keep a diary of all your financial transactions and ideas. Use the diary to identify successful trends and breakthroughs. Capitalize on your own successes to grow your wealth. Friday: While you can earn free plane tickets through mileage credit cards, avoid carrying a balance because the interest rates can be sky-high steep. Click here to compare mileage to low-rate credit cards. |
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Read the Latest: Between the Lines
of Real Estate Appraisals |
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Can a real estate appraisal play a role in potential discrimination? You bet it can. HUD (Office of Housing and Urban Development) created the Fair Housing Act (FHA) specifically to prohibit discrimination in housing transactions. The FHA (along with the Equal Credit Opportunity Act) makes discrimination illegal in mortgage transactions. Most of us don't consider an appraisal as part of the credit process, but if a bank wishes to prevent an applicant from moving into a certain neighborhood, it may enlist the help of a willing appraiser to create a valuation that is too low to justify the loan amount. Appraisals can read like another language to a layperson--how can you spot discrimination if it's subtly concealed? To begin, appraisals shouldn't read like a foreign language. The Equal Credit Opportunity Act entitles you (the borrower) to a copy of the appraisal precisely so you can review it for information that is unclear or questionable. Some aspects of the appraisal may seem more technical or complicated than others, but most of it should be straightforward enough to make sense to you. If it isn't, ask questions of the lender or the appraiser. If they can't answer your questions to your satisfaction, you may have your first clue that something is amiss. More--> |
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Run the Numbers: What's Your Net Worth? |
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Click here to find out how much you’re worth by stacking up your assets against your liabilities. |
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Questions |
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Are there topics you’d like to read more about in Money-Smarts? Questions we can answer? Send an e-mail to emailus@msmoney.com and give us your feedback! Thanks! |