Thursday, January 7, 2010, 7:58PM ET - U.S. Markets Closed.

Anya Kamenetz Generation Debt

Anya Kamenetz, Generation Debt

Make Your Money Work for You

by Anya Kamenetz

Email this Page IM this StoryBookmark this StoryAdd to your Del.icio.us accountDigg this StoryPrint this Story
Good (317 Ratings)
2.943214/5
Posted on Tuesday, February 26, 2008, 12:00AM

How much do you really know about what to do with your money?

Recently, a reader named Dave left this comment on my blog:

"I have tried asking for advice through other sites like Forbes and Vanguard, but it is all so confusing to me. I have money to invest; I just don't know how to invest it. With all of the fees and gimmicks, it is very frustrating. I know I need to get into stocks to get the max return, but I just can't make the distinction between mutual funds and that sort of thing. Any advice would be great."

I decided to write this column on my own approach to investing as a primer for readers like Dave, and a refresher course for those who may have gotten started with their investment planning already.

Saving, Retirement Planning, and Speculation

Saving, retirement planning, and speculation are three very distinct categories that are often lumped together under the heading "investments," which can be extremely confusing.

First, it's important to understand that you can't bury your money under your mattress; if you do this, inflation will destroy its value over time.

That leaves paying down debt; spending on necessary or elective depreciating assets such as food, clothing, and entertainment; and the three options above: saving, retirement planning, and speculation.

For the sake of this column, let's say that you've managed to pay down your high-interest debt -- such as credit cards -- and you manage your expenses well enough to reserve 10 percent or 15 percent of your income each month. Now we can cover what you are going to do with that reserved money in order to live with financial security both now and in the future.

First, there's saving. Saving means putting your money in a very safe vehicle such as a savings account, a money-market account, or a CD (certificate of deposit). With the majority of these ultra-safe vehicles, the rate of return is barely above inflation -- currently an average of 3.08 percent for a six-month CD on Bankrate.com.

Everyone must save. If you're just starting to put away money, you should aim to build up an emergency fund totaling three to six months' expenses. On top of that, you should have a dream fund for planned expenses such as a house, car, vacation, wedding, or baby -- whatever is in your one-year and five-year plans.

Next, there's retirement planning. This is the investment activity I'm going to spend the most time on because it's what people tend to need the most help with.

Everyone needs to plan for his or her own retirement, and most people don't start soon enough or save enough. Here's where members of Generation Debt can be savvy. If you start in your 20s, you can get away with saving just 5 percent of your income and be fairly well set when it's time to retire. If you're starting in your 40s, you'll be shoveling in 30 to 40 percent of your income just to make it to the finish line in decent shape.

Retirement planning should start with the money set aside from your salary in a tax-deferred retirement account: a 401(k) or 403(b) if your employer provides them, or an IRA if they don't. With those contributions, you will mostly want to buy a balanced portfolio of stocks. A good retirement plan is defined by reasonable, targeted long-term returns in the 7 percent range, similar to the rate of growth of the stock market as a whole.

You should try to diversify the funds in that account as much as possible while keeping your costs as low as you can (partly by keeping transactions to a minimum). And you need to take a long-term view.

To keep down your expenses, look for no-load, low-cost mutual funds. When you look up a fund, a number called the "expense ratio" tells you how expensive it is in terms of fees and commissions compared to other funds. The average expense ratio is over 1 percent, while an index fund can be as low as 0.02 percent. This article tells you more about fund expenses.

Speculating is the riskiest type of investment, and it has no place in retirement planning. You are speculating, not planning for retirement, if you're taking advice from Jim Cramer's "Mad Money", trying to maximize your returns into the double digits by choosing particular stocks, and timing the market so that you can buy low and sell high. Another activity that falls under the category of speculation is buying a house in order to "flip" it.

Most individuals find it very difficult to beat the market by speculating. If you want to try it for fun, after you've maxed out your retirement contributions, that's fine. But if you are really that good at doing research on individual companies or predicting what the economy is going to do, do what Cramer did: Go into finance for a living.

Get Good Sources of Information

Two-thirds to three-fourths of the information you will find on Yahoo! Finance, on CNBC, and similar resources about "investing" is really about speculating. That's because it's exciting for financial journalists to cover "stocks everyone is talking about" or the daily ups and downs of the market. But this won't help your long-term retirement-planning strategy.

The big brokerage firms like Fidelity and Vanguard offer some great information on retirement planning, but remember that their income depends on fees and commissions, so you have to be vigilant in seeking out the lowest-cost investment options on their sites.

That leaves folks who specialize in personal finance, which is distinct from investing. We all have our own personal philosophies and agendas, so it's good to read as widely as possible and compare to find an approach that sounds good. As a rule of thumb, don't pay attention to anyone who promises to make you rich.

I like Henry Blodget's "Wall Street Self Defense Manual" (you can read about his approach here in Slate). He was once on the dark side, disgraced and banned from the securities biz for playing a part in pumping the biggest stock bubble in history, but in his new, reformed life, Blodget gives solid advice.

This recent "New York Times" article about top Yale investor David Swensen's book, "Unconventional Success: A Fundamental Approach to Personal Investment", contains some good information as well.

Diversify

So, you have maxed out your contributions to a 401(k). Now what?

Buying and holding a low-cost index stock fund such as Fidelity's Spartan 500 is the easiest way to capture returns close to the overall market return of 7 percent to 10 percent. The 500 refers to the 500-stock average; owning this fund is like owning the whole stock market.

If you want to diversify beyond owning a U.S. stock index, two good places to look are foreign stock markets and real estate. Most of the value of the world's markets is outside the U.S., but most American investors keep the majority of their money inside the country. Right now I have about a third of my retirement money in foreign stock indexes.

You can also invest in real estate. Such investing could mean buying a home or other property, especially if you plan to live in it as well. But you can also invest in a REIT, or Real Estate Investment Trust. With a REIT, you are owning a piece of a bunch of properties, similar to a mutual fund of stocks. That way, you're not gambling on the rise or fall of one particular real estate market. Check out the Vanguard REIT Index Fund.

Set It and Forget It

Every time you make a trade, you pay commissions and fees, and when you sell an investment, you pay capital gains taxes on any income from that sale. Over the long run, these costs can eat heavily into your returns. So save more money and add to your investment mix over time, but don't make rash decisions based on short-term changes in the market. Remember -- if you're a young investor, time is on your side.

Email this Page IM this StoryBookmark this StoryAdd to your Del.icio.us accountDigg this StoryPrint this Story

Rate This story

Good (317 Ratings)
3/5
Sign-in to rate!

101 Comments

Showing comments 6-35 of 101<< PreviousNext >>
Sort: first to last

  • Yahoo! Finance User - Sunday, March 2, 2008, 6:07PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 1/5

    c'mon, i mean, how can anyone starting out in their 20's afford to put away even 5% of their take home? what with student loans, ccc(credit card college) debt, car payments, rent, food, utilities.....and that is if they are lucky enuf to find a degree related job. in theory your strategy sounds good but i'm afraid that in reality- unless someone has a rich mommy and daddie to foot the bill- that's just not going to happen. what will happen is that 20-something will forever be in debt.i have read more realistic articles from you.

  • David - Saturday, March 1, 2008, 11:48AM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 5/5

    Nice article especially regarding the difference between investing and speculating and the need to avoid excess fees. I'm surprised though you didn't mention www.fundgrades.com since it is the only mutual fund and ETF grading website that actually grades funds on expenses relative to their asset class, along with four other fiduciary criteria.

  • Yahoo! Finance User - Friday, February 29, 2008, 8:11PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 1/5

    any columnist that refers to blodgett is a good light is not worth reading. blodgett cost my family a lot once, is banned, and cannot be trusted. shame on you for referring to him in good light. you clearly dont know how ti invest.

  • Todd - Friday, February 29, 2008, 9:30AM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 1/5

    All you have to do in life to get ahead of Generation Debt is to marry a Yale grad that works for Google. Make sure he has the right lineage as well. Right Anya?

  • hunter - Thursday, February 28, 2008, 9:06PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 3/5

    the biggest problem we face is our declining currency value. when the euro was first introduced the exchange rate was close to one for one. now $1 buys $.65 euros. what does that mean? simply put, it means our dollar has declined 35% in value since the euro was introduced. other currencies are valued more today than ever, against the dollar. as long as our monetary policy is conducted this way (to help make our goods cheaper abroad), to help balance the huge trade deficit we are experiencing we will continue to see our standard of living decline. coupled with inflation which is just beginning to be a significant, uncontrollable factor (mainly due to high oil prices and limited commodities) we are facing huge uncertainty and unprecedented financial problems in this country. this is the dirty little secret the Fed does not want to address and is hoping you won't notice. buy gold and silver coins, silver eagles and morgan dollars are good investments and a hedge against inflationary/monetary problems that will not go away.

  • Hemant J - Thursday, February 28, 2008, 10:27AM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 5/5

    hi nice article i have also a question for you, i heard from someone that every percentage increase in gdp of country makes rise to grow some economic sector,if you make a article for it i will be very thankful for me.

  • Yahoo! Finance User - Wednesday, February 27, 2008, 10:13PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 3/5

    Set it and forget it? You should recommend target retirement mutual funds so you do not have to come back and re-balance the asset allocation.

  • Jeremy - Wednesday, February 27, 2008, 9:25PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 5/5

    Excellent!!! Guess commenter Allen missed the first few paragraphs. Thanks for the writings they do have a place in alot of folks

  • Yahoo! Finance User - Wednesday, February 27, 2008, 9:00PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 3/5

    I'm not sure about what the article says but she's kind of cute. Invest in McDonalds double cheeseburgers!

  • JB - Wednesday, February 27, 2008, 8:38PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 2/5

    Anya - just answer Dave's question! I doubt if Dave got his answer... He didn't ask for personal finance 101 in a nutshell, he asked about investing and what the heck are mutual funds. A simple explanation of mutual funds, stocks, and bonds would have been more useful. Also, no mention of ETFs? They're generally cheaper, easier and more liquid than mutual funds. And if you want to talk about indices for owning the market, what about something that benchmarks the Wilshire 5000 - owning 500 stocks is hardly like owning the market.

  • Yahoo! Finance User - Wednesday, February 27, 2008, 7:54PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 5/5

    Excellent! It can't be emphasized too much - start saving / investing early in your 20's and let compound growth do all the work. Anya, I agree with you 100%

  • Yahoo! Finance User - Wednesday, February 27, 2008, 6:16PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 4/5

    Regarding retirement, After piling into a 401k, pile into a Roth IRA. At 59.5, you get to extract Roth IRA earnings tax free.

  • Nocturnal_Insomniac - Wednesday, February 27, 2008, 5:59PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 4/5

    I think the key note for beginners here is saving, and once you've saved you need an inflation fighter. Pretty good advice that if someone already knew it then someone might need to have it repeated. Being that those that don't save end up costing us that do save, as opposed as those who cannot save, younger Americans can start on the way to averting disaster for themselves. A little bit of savings can help with little disasters, a lot of savings can help with larger disasters. Pay down your credit cards, along with inflation the depleted dollar who wants to finance any purchase with such a high interest rate.

  • allenEv - Wednesday, February 27, 2008, 5:52PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 1/5

    Anya, you are giving the corporate line that is certain to keep anyone following it a wage slave til 59.5 and beyond. There are safe ways to do multiples better than the average stock return of 7%. Can you say "stock option?" Would a rate of return like 24% change your mind as to when you could retire?

  • Yahoo! Finance User - Wednesday, February 27, 2008, 5:24PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 3/5

    Geez! Some of you financial hot-shots really need to get a life. This isn't Barrons or the WSJ. Its for younger people who want to take care of their finances without becoming an obsessive day trader. People who actually want to think about something other than money when they go home to their family. People who need coaching in how to manage their finances and lifestyle expectations. People who want to be on "the right track" overall, but have a life on the side. Her advice, while rife with platitudes and generalisms, is sound overall and would have been heeded to GREAT benefit by the boomers in the 70s-80s. Checked the median savings rates and IRA holdings for the boomers lately? If only .... Thanks for doing your (thankless) job, Anya. I wish you were there 20 years ago when I left college.

  • Justine - Wednesday, February 27, 2008, 4:26PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 3/5

    Pretty good general knowledge article. Do your homework! That is all I can say. And, no, retirement isn't guaranteed. My dad passed away at exactly age 59 1/2. So, he never had the opportunity to enjoy any of his retirement savings. I guess the lesson to learn from that is to enjoy yourself too while you are saving for retirement. Also, there is nothing stopping you from "firing" your financial planner if you don't like him or her. Just find another one and sign a form to facilitate the change. Believe me, they'll have the form you need. Or, you can always operate under the assumption that our "commocratic" government will bail out the "under-savers" in the next 20 years and save nothing. After all, which would you rather have: a 52" flatscreen plasma TV today, or $15 to $20 thousand 20 years from now?

  • Ballgame - Wednesday, February 27, 2008, 4:19PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 3/5

    Anya is providing basic information to inventors she assumes know little about the market and investing in general. I'd venture to guess that about 80% of the workforce is in this category. So I'm not going to disparage her for providing what some think is very obvious and basic advice. The bottom line is this: investing in a retirment account saves one 25% or more because of the tax implications. That is the equivalent of a 25% return in my mind. Even the best investors can't pull that off very often. Therefore, despite her lack of homework (re: Fidelity's Spartan 500 -- this fund is closed to new investors), she provides sound advice: max out your retirement contributions and worry about speculative investing when you have extra scratch and time to do research.

  • Lizzi - Wednesday, February 27, 2008, 4:02PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 2/5

    It is uninspiring canned advice, some of which I disagree with. My biggest disagreement is to create an emergency fund that earns only 3%. If you don't need to tap it regularly (which you shouldn't) the difference between making 7% and 3% is 4%/year. With that kind of opportunity cost, you could use a credit card as an emergency fund and work on paying it back with your other investments when it makes sense. My rewards credit card is at about 11% right now. So it would cost 4% more to pay the credit card company -- so I would have to have 'an emergency' that I couldn't pay off for just as long as I'd have cash in the savings account for it to be a wash. So if I only have "emergencies" less than 1/2 the time, the emergency accound doesn't make sense. Another emergency fund (the one I actually have) is a HELOC. With a current interest rate at 5.5% it might even make sense to pull that out and put it in higher yield, but relatively low risk investments (some of which I already have done, but I keep some of it back as an emergency fund). Foriegn stock also looks like an after thought to her and she only uses a generic indice. Another intresting place to invest is in the money markets or commodity markets -- but you have to know something about something to be successful there.

  • Yahoo! Finance User - Wednesday, February 27, 2008, 3:57PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 2/5

    The article had some good points, but there are some net worth/annual income requirements and additional rules around some of the investments mentioned, especially REITS.

  • Yahoo! Finance User - Wednesday, February 27, 2008, 3:47PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 5/5

    Bottom line, learn how to invest or content to get rip off by mutual fund/financial adviser/wallstreet. There is a whole industry just to prey on people's lazyness in learning financial matters.

  • tom - Wednesday, February 27, 2008, 3:11PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 1/5

    There are a few misstatements in this article. On bright side, the author did have knowledge to advise young investors to investment both US and ex-US. On the not so bright side, the author states the S&P500 is synonmous with investing in all stocks in the US. Fact is, this is investing in large cap stocks only. If I were to take this advice literally, I would ignore small cap & mid cap asset classes. For a young person truly trying to get ahead by saving early, completely ignoring small cap & mid cap companies potentially represents a hugh opportunity loss. Since 1926, $1 in small cap value has appreciated to approx. $40,000 today. Since 1926, $1 in mid cap value has appreciated to approx. $15,000 today. Since 1926, $1 in large cap stocks/S&P 500 has appreciated to about $2,000 today. While I admire and applaud this author's attempt to encourage young people to save/invest, there are just too many falsehoods consistently in this author's writings to be taken seriously. Micro-hoo would be wise to engage a new Generation Debt writer. Perhaps the writers at MoneyCentral can takeover this column and truly help young people get ahead versus writing articles that will likely only promise medicority/subpar results for young people's hard earned cash.

  • Yahoo! Finance User - Wednesday, February 27, 2008, 3:10PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 2/5

    To 1:43 I think she's probably talking about Vanguard's S&P 500 or Total Market Indeces, which have expense ratios of .18 and .19 percent respectively, again, only about 10 times her estimate in cost, but who's counting? There is nothing available to anyone, even institutional investors with millions of $$$$'s to invest, for 2 basis points. Here's a thought, look at performance net of expenses. Is 10 years a long enough time frame? The Vanguard S&P and the Total Stock Market index returned 5.06% and 5.54% over the last 10 years, net of their puny .18 and .19 expense ratios. A fund that has a similar investment objective is American Funds' Fundamental Investors. Its A share has an up front sales charge of 5.75% and a whopping .61% expense ratio! However, net of fees, its 10 year average return was a lousy 8.47%, or about 3% better each on average each and every year than the index. If you look beyond primarily large cap blended domestic funds, you'll find Hartford's Capital Appreciation fund, a large cap growth fund with the option to invest some (19% currently) internationally, with a 5.5% upfront load and a 1.18% annual expense ratio only gained 11.84% annually over the last 10 years, and that sucks because it's only about twice the return of the index AND you made someone else super dooper rich by paying some additional fees and loads, which is what REALLY matters. Maybe you could venture into small caps with Keely's Small Cap fund, with a 4.5% load and 1.33% expense ration, but you'll have to settle for a 10 year return of a measley 11.76%, after the load and after the fees. A little shop called Morningstar will tell you that if you started with ten grand in each of the above mentioned investments 10 years ago, today you'd have: $22,063 in the S&P indx. $22,552 in the total stock mkt indx. $30,693 in the American Fund $49,071 in the Hartford Fund $44,361 in the Keeley Fund. These are Morningstar's numbers, not mine, so don't blame if you don't agree with the math. The funds' ticker symbols are: VFINX VTSMX ANCFX ITHAX KSCVX

  • Yahoo! Finance User - Wednesday, February 27, 2008, 3:06PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 3/5

    I have to say I agree with at least a couple of points here. The first is an emergency fund. This should be a priority. The second is managed investements. Whether it is CD's, savings accounts, IRA's or 401k"s the realized gains over a lifetime of work are better than most people can do on their own if investment isn't their full time job. I must disagree though on the idea that speculation is not right for retirement. Retirement itself is speculation. There are many who never live to see retirement. There are many who have a catastrophic event happen just before or just into retirement that wipes out their entire retirement fund. IRA's, 401k's, mutual funds, those are all speculation as well. They are generally not as RISKY as say real estate or commodities, but the returns are not as great either. Age of course should dictate how much risk you take with your retirement. If a person wants to gain as much as possible for retirement then speculation is essential. A thirty something buying real estate just beofre the market dumps is not an end of the world scenario. Of course a sixty something in the same situation is. Anya can't remember the downturn in the late 90's and early 00's, but I knew many who were close to retirement whose portfolio had lost 30 and 40% in the space of two years. These were 401k's that most of them had in low risk markets. Some of these folks had to put off retirement for a few years to wait it out. So the first thing to remember is that unless you stuff your cash in your matress, nothing is a sure thing. Even holding on to cash is risky as inflation and devaluing currency takes its toll on the standard of living that dollar can provide. My advice is this, save as much as you can, be as risky as your gut will allow when your young, and begin removing portions from your primary investment vehicle and converting to hard assets as time goes on. Buying gold and other metals provides some measure of insurance if we experience a total market collapse. Buying land or real estate also works. I have enough worthless stock certificates to paper my house, so I can attest that non-tangible investments sometimes leave you high and dry. While gold may drop in value you still have something more than paper in your hand at the end of the day. The most important thing I have learned about investing for retirement is this; Don't let it consume you. There is more to life than worrying about the end.

  • Yahoo! Finance User - Wednesday, February 27, 2008, 3:05PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 3/5

    Day 1 of Investing 101.

  • Yahoo! Finance User - Wednesday, February 27, 2008, 3:00PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 1/5

    She's not even old enough to have seen this play out. Neither am I, but I'm not writing about it on Yahoo Finance.....

  • Don - Wednesday, February 27, 2008, 2:56PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 1/5

    Ms. Kamenetz has zero credentials to be giving anyone else financial advice. Perhaps that is why the shallowness of her comments are so apparent.

  • Heroine Worshipper - Wednesday, February 27, 2008, 2:30PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 1/5

    It's the young & clueless leading the young & clueless. Inflation is not 2.5%. It's more like 13%. U just don't figure it out until you're 30. Whether the analysts recommended buy & old or active trading changes often. Now they're recommending buy & hold but what about next year?

  • familyman05 - Wednesday, February 27, 2008, 2:09PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 1/5

    Sorry Dave, Anya didn't even remotely answer your question. Let me try. Open a full service brokerage account (ie. fidelity.com) and buy the retirement (target) mutual fund corresponding with the year you plan to retire (ie FFFDX). Once you've done that start looking at the mix of securities(stocks, bonds etc.) in your mutual fund and learn more as you go. As you get more comfortable you can spread out your holdings(buy stocks, bonds or other mutual funds) and nail down your target mix of stocks and bonds and long term vs. short term investments. THAT'S IT ... Good Luck!!! Sorry about Anya's recitation of conventional advice, without any real world context or actionable suggestions ... maybe she'll do better next time.

  • Scott - Wednesday, February 27, 2008, 1:47PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 2/5

    Index funds are for people who want exert minimal effort in their investing, because you don't have to think about what you are buying, you are just betting on the stock market will advance overall over the long haul. However if you are aware of the world around you, you can probably do a better job of predicting where the market will go in the next couple of years than tracking the index; note that I'm not talking about following the speculation that she mentions is widely covered in financial news. However if you don't want to think, then index fund is the safest bet, because if you pick randomly you have a better chance of picking something which will under perform the index.

  • Yahoo! Finance User - Wednesday, February 27, 2008, 1:43PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 3/5

    To 1:16 -- she was talking about index funds, not actively managed mutual funds. Some of them really do have extremely low expense ratios, and 0.02% is plausible for the low end of the range.

Showing comments 6-35 of 101<< PreviousNext >>

More from Anya Kamenetz

Read the Generation Debt Book

According to economics professor Laurence J. Kotlikoff, Generation Debt offers "a truly gripping account of how young Americans are being ground down by low wages, high taxes, huge student loans, sky-high housing prices, not to mention the impending retirement of their baby boomer parents." Generation Debt will inspire you to take charge of your financial future.

Read more from Anya Kamenetz here and here.

More from Yahoo! Sources

  • CNN Money
  • Consumer Reports
  • Kiplinger
  • The Motley Fool
  • Business Week
  • Wall Street Journal

Sponsored Links

Buy Stocks for $4
No Account or Investment Minimums. $50 Account Bonus! Don’t miss out.
www.sharebuilder.com
Live Forex Practice Account
Practice Forex Trading in Real Market Conditions with a Free Trial.
www.GFTforex.com
Refinance Now at 4.2% Fixed
No hidden fees, 4.4% APR. No obligation. Get 4 free quotes. No SSN req.
MortgageRefinance.LendGo.com
Super Cheap Car Insurance Quotes
Get Discount Auto Insurance Quotes Online - Rates from $15 / Month.
USInsuranceOnline.com
Obama Urges Homeowners to Refinance
($90,000 Refinance $489/mo) See Rates - No Credit Check Req.
www.LowerMyBills.com
Earn From 1.90% to 2.20% Apply Online
With GE Capital Corporation. Not An Offer Of Securities For Sale.
www.geinterestplus.com

Historical chart data and daily updates provided by Commodity Systems, Inc. (CSI). International historical chart data and daily updates provided by Morningstar, Inc. Fundamental company data provided by Capital IQ. Quotes and other information supplied by independent providers identified on the Yahoo! Finance partner page. Quotes are updated automatically, but will be turned off after 25 minutes of inactivity. Quotes are delayed at least 15 minutes. Real-Time continuous streaming quotes are available through our premium service. You may turn streaming quotes on or off. All information provided "as is" for informational purposes only, not intended for trading purposes or advice. Neither Yahoo! nor any of independent providers is liable for any informational errors, incompleteness, or delays, or for any actions taken in reliance on information contained herein. By accessing the Yahoo! site, you agree not to redistribute the information found therein.

Yahoo! Answers is provided for informational purposes only, and no Q&A is intended for trading or investing purposes. Yahoo! shall not be responsible or liable for the accuracy, usefulness or availability of any Q&A information, and shall not be responsible or liable for any trading or investment decisions based on such information. View Complete Answers Disclaimer.