Island Investing Cale Smith, MBA August 8, 2009 KeysWeekly.com Q. Is the recession over? A. Lean in close. I’ve got something you should hear. There has been a recent flurry of economic data released. If there were one conclusion to be drawn regarding whether or not we’re still in a recession, it would be this: […]

Island Investing Cale Smith, MBA August 1, 2009 KeysWeekly.com Q. What are credit default swaps? A. A credit default swap, or CDS, is a contract that promises to cover losses on certain securities, including corporate debt, municipal bonds, and those securitized mortgages I mentioned last week, if they default. Buyers of credit default swaps make […]

Island Investing Cale Smith, MBA July 25, 2009 KeysWeekly.com We’re continuing to answer the question, “What are derivatives and why should I care about them?” Last week I began to discuss the derivatives that contributed to The Great Recession we are now in. I described the entire multi-trillion dollar mortgage market as a three-story building […]

Island Investing Cale Smith, MBA July 18, 2009 KeysWeekly.com Q. What are derivatives and why should I care about them? A. Consider yourself warned: reading about derivatives can make you narcoleptic. Usually the phrase “collateralized debt obligation” is followed by the drool that comes only from deep REM sleep. But to understand the credit crisis […]

Island Investing Cale Smith, MBA July 11, 2009 KeysWeekly.com Q. What’s a hedge fund? A. Think of a hedge fund as an unregulated mutual fund. While the word “hedge” might lead you to believe these funds cautiously hedge their bets, that is rarely the case. Like a mutual fund, a hedge fund is a pool […]

Island Investing Cale Smith KeysWeekly.com July 4, 2009 Q. What exactly are index funds and what’s so great about them? A. They are low-cost mutual funds built to mimic a stock market index. For instance, an S&P 500 Index fund contains stocks in the 500 companies that make up that index. Index funds are passively […]

Today’s column for the Keys Weekly. Island Investing Cale Smith June 27, 2009 Q. Can you explain mutual fund fees? A. Let’s start with the basics. One in every two households in the Keys owns mutual funds, but many folks may not understand how they operate. A mutual fund is a giant pool of money […]

Today’s column for the Keys Weekly. Island Investing Cale Smith June 20, 2009 Q. How does my financial advisor get paid? A. Many people have no idea how much they pay their broker, planner or advisor every year. There is no shame in asking, though. Wall Street makes it hard if not impossible for many […]

This week’s column for the Keys Weekly. Island Investing Cale Smith June 13, 2009 I received three questions from readers of last week’s column. I’m happy to say two of them were from people other than my mom. Don’t forget: free T-shirt. Send your investing question to csmith (at) islainvest.com. If nothing else, you can […]

This week I started writing a new column called “Island Investing” for the Keys Weekly paper. It will be in the version that’s distributed in Homestead, Key Largo, Tavernier and Islamorada. Here’s my intro, out today. Island Investing Cale Smith June 6, 2009 I’d like to use this column to answer questions about investing. I […]