Investments

Get ready to play the retirement game even more cautiously: The common wisdom that a 4% annual withdrawal rate is the safe way to avoid outliving your money is increasingly coming under fire. In fact, it may well become a thing of the past.

Aware that most Americans would like to dump them all, members of Congress hope to regain some sense of trust by subjecting themselves to tougher penalties for insider trading and requiring they disclose stock transactions within 30 days.

Good news: Retirees will get a 3.6% Social Security cost-of-living adjustment in 2012 -- their first boost since 2009. Bad news: The average benefit is $1,229 a month, about the equivalent of working for minimum wage.

With all the ups and downs in the stock market in the last week, it's not surprising that some investors have panicked. But we've also found examples of investors who have kept calm. Here are some of their secrets.

Amid plenty of uncertainty, investors are looking for strategies that will make them wealthy. But you should forget about the idea of getting rich quick and focus on diversity, according to Larry Light, author of the new book, Taming the Beast: Wall Street's Imperfect Answers to Making Money.

If you need cash and have investments you don't want to sell, a stock-based loan may sound like a good idea. But the unregulated stock-based loan industry can be a risky way to tap into the value of your portfolio, warns the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.

Though it has been part of the retirement investing landscape for more than a decade, many people still don't understand the Roth IRA, or what it can do for them. DailyFinance clears up the myths and misunderstandings about this tax-advantaged savings vehicle.

You finally sold your home in the worst housing market the country has seen in decades, and you're never going to buy another one. You're looking for a safe investment and finally find someone you like to help you. Time to relax, right? Wrong, if your investment adviser happened to be Richard...

Consumers were convinced they were making a safe real-estate investment and that they would receive an annual return of 14% to 16%. What happened instead is that the salesman made millions, while consumers lost their savings. The Utah Attorney General's Office and the U.S. Department of Commerce...

The moods that dictate underlying prices can quickly swing from one extreme to the other. Such swings often create opportunities for investors. For instance, the rush back to domestic markets is leaving opportunity on the table overseas again.