Morningstar Instant X-Ray Tool

Whenever you invest in multiple mutual funds and ETFs, you may wonder how broadly and appropriately diversified your aggregate portfolio might be. Have your investment holdings and mutual funds that you have chosen increased the global diversification of your personal financial asset portfolio? Do they just duplicate what you already own?

You can use the free Morningstar Instant X-Ray Tool to measure your portfolio diversification. This tool can help you to understand better the relative contribution that each of your investment holdings makes to your goal of holding a broadly diversified investment portfolio.

On the Morningstar website, you can find their "Instant X-Ray" tool.
http://portfolio.morningstar.com/NewPort/Free/InstantXRayDEntry.aspx

Federal Reserve System Consumer Information

http://www.federalreserve.gov/consumerinfo/default.htm

NOTE THE LINK URL IS TOO LONG FOR THIS LINK SYSTEM, BUT CLICKING ABOVE WILL TAKE YOU TO A PAGE WHERE YOU CAN FIND THIS PAPER.

IF NOT, CLICK OR COPY AND PASTE THIS COMPLETE LINK ADDRESS BELOW INTO YOUR BROWSER ADDRESS BAR:

http://www.law.unc.edu/journals/ncbank/volumes/volume10/citation-10-nc-banking-inst-2006/the-credit-card-market-and-regulation-in-need-of-repair/


To read an excellent summary about abuse of credit card consumers, see: "The Credit Card Market and Regulation: In Need of Repair" by Carolyn Carter, Elizabeth Renuart, Margot Saunders, and Chi Chi Wu, who all are lawyers with the National Consumer Law Center.

Published in March 2006, "this paper was originally one part of comprehensive comments submitted by the National Consumer Law Center (NCLC) to the Federal Reserve Board. The comments were submitted on behalf of the low income clients of the National Consumer Law Center, a variety of other national advocacy groups, and individual members of the Board’s Consumer Advisory Council." The other national advocacy groups who participated in this submission to the Fed include:

The Consumer Federation of America (CFA), Consumers Union (CU -- publisher of Consumer Reports magazine), Demos, The National Association of Consumer Advocates (NACA), The U.S. Public Interest Research Group (U.S. PIRG), and The Woodstock Institute.

The Guide to Social Security by Dr. Shelby Smith

When you click this link, you will be taken to a website that allows a download of this .pdf document.

Some browsers will automatically display a download dialog box for your approval that includes a long file name composed of random letters and numbers. In this situation, the document may not display on the screen.

Other browsers will display the document on-line, but will not automatically initiate a download for your approval. In these situations, look immediately above the document on your screen. You can download the document by clicking on the diskette icon, which will invoke a similar approval dialog box to download the same file with the long file name composed of random letters and numbers.

In 2009, the Social Security Administration established the Financial Literacy Research Consortium (FLRC) to do the following:
* help foster retirement and other saving strategies at all stages of the life cycle,
* help low and moderate income populations successfully plan and save for retirement and other life events, and
* improve understanding of Social Security's programs.

The FLRC consists of three non-partisan, multidisciplinary research centers at Boston College, the RAND Corporation, and the University of Wisconsin. In part because the Boston College Center for Financial Literacy is held within the larger and already established Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, this one of these three FLRC centers has a particularly rich list of documents that are of practical use to individuals who are making decisions about Social Security for their families. This is a link to the BC Center for Financial Literacy. Once you are at this center's website, also look around more broadly on the CRR website, because is offers a wealth of interesting and useful retirement information.

In 2009, the Social Security Administration established the Financial Literacy Research Consortium (FLRC) to do the following:
* help foster retirement and other saving strategies at all stages of the life cycle,
* help low and moderate income populations successfully plan and save for retirement and other life events, and
* improve understanding of Social Security's programs.

If you have investments in a company profit sharing, ESOP, 401k, stock bonus, or money purchase pension plan that has over 100 employees enrolled, you may be able to find information online about the expenses of your plan. These profit sharing, ESOP, 401k, stock bonus, or money purchase pension plans must file a Form 5500 with the Department of Labor. A firm named Brightscope.com has put this form 5500 information online. Brightscope.com says that their database contains over 55,000 plans and covers over 90% of total invested assets in company sponsored 401(k) retirement plans.

To find out about the plan expenses of any company in the Brightscope.com database, you must register with brightscope.com by giving your name, an email address, and a password, and then you must confirm an automated email that is sent to your email account. Registration is free and you do not need to be affiliated with any company. You can look up any company, as if for example, you were a job seeker and wanted to understand about any company's plan investment cost efficiency. However, make sure that you look up the company that is most important to you first, because you are limited to five free fee reports.

After you have logged into your brightscope.com account, search for a particular company by name. On the company overview page, select the "Brightscope Rating" tab near the top. Look for the little pie chart, followed by a link entitled "<Name of Company> Personal Fee Report" and click the link. In the "Your Fees" click "Select Investments" and add some particular investments and investment dollar amounts, and then click the "Submit Investments" tab at the bottom. Finally, click the link named "View Detailed Calculations" for a breakout of all the expenses.

US Department of Labor Fact Sheet: Final Rule to Improve Transparency of Fees and Expenses to Workers in 401(k)-Type Retirement Plans

Finding information about the costs of employer-sponsored defined contribution plans is difficult, because for years weak regulations have allowed the financial industry to obscure these costs and gouge millions of retirement plan participants. This has made it difficult for both employers and plan participants to understand the true costs of these retirement plans. Particularly at smaller companies where fewer people are paying attention, some of these retirement savings plans carry simply outrageous visible and hidden fees. With new US Department of Labor regulations requiring fee disclosures, we will soon have a much better understanding of these fees starting at the beginning of 2012. For information on these new regulations, follow this link to the US Department of Labor.

This directory is sponsored and maintained by the Ohio State Department of Finance and the American Finance Association. It has a searchable index of 4,020 individuals at 1021 colleges and universities around the world with the vast majority at U.S. educational institutions. Individual listings contain links to the school and/or personal websites of these financial academics. This directory also lists 695 finance professionals at non-academic institutions. (Directory numbers are as of October 6, 2009.)

Tax Data from the Tax Foundation -- The Tax Foundation provides "journalists, taxpayers and policymakers with basic data on taxes and spending," as part of its educational mission. Find tax U.S. federal, state, and local tax data, information, and analysis.