Perhaps you heard it from your parents, some guy you know who “really has it together” or maybe you’ve read it on a blog like this one. Regardless of where you got the advice: You know that it’s never too early to start saving for retirement. That means if you have a steady job, you should start to save for retirement. But how? We get more questions about retirement savings—including 401(k) plans and individual retirement accounts—than any other topic. And no wonder: It seems complicated, it’s boring as hell and, at the end of the day, retirement seems like a long way off when you’re in your twenties.

No matter. You can learn how to start saving for retirement in the five minutes it will take you to read this article, and you can probably start doing it in less than an hour. So if you know that you should start saving for retirement but have no idea where to start, roll up your sleeves, brush off your fear and let’s get started. [...]

Last week, a long-time reader e-mailed a superb question: If you must choose, should you save first for retirement or save for a down payment on your first home?

Obviously, both are important. The younger you are when you start contributing to a 401(k) or IRA, the longer compounding interest will work its magic. At the same time, many of us want to own a home before we turn a certain age, get married, or have kids. And if we’re able, the money-savvy among us would like to buy our home with a substantial down payment (ideally 20 percent).

That’s no small goal.

But can you save for both retirement and a down payment at the same time? And, if you must choose, which should be your priority? The answer is, of course, complicated, and depends on some individual financial factors. But, in general, save for retirement first. [...]

Savvy investors know that a single mistake can wipe out months—even years—of solid returns. And beginning investors often make their share of the same four common blunders. In fact, tactics for identifying and avoiding these investing missteps are among the most important things a new investor can learn. Here they are: [...]

You don’t need a Ph.D. in economics to know that economic bubbles—and their ensuing POPS!—can take us all for a wild ride.

Bubbles occur anytime asset prices appreciate unrealistically; and they happen more often than we think. In the United States alone we have seen two in the past twenty years: The dot-com bubble in the late nineties and the mid-2000s real estate craze that has resulted in today’s downtrodden economy.

Bubbles happen everywhere. Japan, for example, experienced a huge surge in real estate and stock prices in the late 1980’s. Apartment prices doubled or even tripled in value in only a few years. By 1990, the value of Japan’s real estate had grown to five times the value of the entire U.S.; The Imperial Palace alone was valued as much as the entire state of California.

At the end of the boom, however, Japan’s balloon economy became distressed and fell hard, entering into a decade-long deflationary slump. This so-called lost decade is a painful reminder of what can result from such a bubble. In fact, Japan is still struggling to revive its economy today, in part due to the recent global financial crisis. [...]

There is a thin line that differentiates investing and gambling.

We might consider professional gamblers—poker players, for example—a breed of speculative investors. Of course, we might also call investment professionals who take wild risks in financial markets gamblers. No matter how skilled the card shark or how practiced the investing maven, one thing is certain: in cards, as in the stock market, there are no guarantees.

Whether we gamble or invest, we take risks in pursuit of potential rewards.

We risk a dollar on a lottery ticket for a potential to win ten million dollars, we risk $25 on a hand of blackjack for the potential to double our money, we risk $5,000 to buy a penny stock for the potential it will triple in three months, or we risk our life’s savings in the stock market for the potential to earn consistent annual returns.

Each risk carries vastly different odds (and potential returns). At the one extreme, the odds you will lose your dollar is good; of winning the lottery, not so good. On the other extreme, the odds of making a modest return on a long-term investment in the stock market is good; the odds you’ll lose a chunk of your savings is much lower.

But are investing and gambling the same? Let’s use an example to find out: [...]

To make a successful investment, you must know when to buy and when you should sell. The reality is that there are only a handful of companies worth holding onto for long periods of time—and there are very few investors who are perceptive enough to buy only those companies.

There will always be good times to sell stocks we own, and knowing when to sell is just as important as knowing when to buy. Yet we often find ourselves selling our winners too early and holding onto our losers too long.

Here are some questions to ask yourself to help decide when it’s time to sell your stocks. [...]

Just over a week ago, the Obama Administration waged war on Wall Street.

President Obama has proposed financial reform that would limit the size and activities of the largest U.S. banks by separating proprietary trading, hedge funds, and private equity operations from banking (taking deposits and making loans). Theoretically, these reforms would simultaneously reduce the size of these banks and curb risk-taking.

Assuming that the new proposal passes the Senate, how effective will Obama’s proposal be? Will it ensure financial stability and long-term economic growth for the U.S.? Not necessarily. Here’s why. [...]

This past week, the Boca Raton Resort & Club hosted the Third Annual Inside ETFs Conference, the world’s largest exchange traded fund (ETF) event with over 750 participants. CNBC even broadcasted live from the event with interviews from ETF issuers, marketers, fund managers and others involved in the ETF business.

With over 800 ETFs in the U.S. and total ETF assets recently surpassing the $1 trillion mark [WSJ sub. req'd.], the ETF industry is certainly growing fast. But where are ETFs going? Let’s take a look. [...]

If you want to get the most bang for your retirement-buck, it’s time to read up on an popular but confusing tax-saving tactic, the Roth IRA conversion.

A Roth IRA conversion allows you to pay income taxes on money you have invested tax-free in a traditional IRA this year instead of when you withdraw the money at retirement. (Because once you convert to a Roth IRA, distributions at retirement are tax-free).

Roth conversions are hot because as of Jan. 1, 2010, the IRS lifted income limitations on converting a traditional IRA to a Roth IRA. Formerly, conversions were only available to investors with a modified adjusted gross income (MAGI) of less than $100,000. Because investors who earn more than a certain amount also cannot contribute to Roth IRAs, a Roth IRA conversion presents a new opportunity to many investors to take advantage of the Roth IRA’s benefits. Additionally, there’s a special rule this year only that allows investors to recognize all of the conversion income in the 2010 tax year or split it equally between the next two tax years (2011 and 2012).

Read This First! Despite all the buzz about Roth conversions, only a relative few investors should use them. If you’re currently eligible to contribute to a Roth IRA or have a Roth 401(k) at work or you can’t contribute to a Roth but are planning on converting and using assets in your traditional IRA to pay income taxes for the conversion, stop. You probably shouldn’t convert and probably don’t need to read this.

Still curious? Okay. Before we examine exactly who should consider an IRA conversion, here’s a quick refresher of IRA basics. [...]

Gold has been one of the hottest topics in the investing world in recent months, and with good reason. In 2009, investors received a 25 percent return on gold—the biggest absolute annual gain in three decades. Arguably, gold’s nine-year streak of positive returns is even more impressive.

If you’re considering whether to invest in gold, it’s important to understand the close relationship between the value of gold and the value of the dollar.

A Brief History of Gold and the Dollar

To understand how and why gold has had such a historical run-up, a little history lesson on the relationship between gold and the dollar is helpful.

The relationship between the dollar and gold is tied to the concept of tangible assets vs. financial assets. To put it simply, gold has real value, while the dollar is a representation of real value.

In 1944, the Bretton Woods Agreement launched the first system of convertible currencies and fixed exchange rates, requiring participating countries to maintain the value of their currency within a narrow margin against the U.S. dollar, which was fixed at a rate of $35 per gold ounce.

However, in the 1950s and 1960s, the increasing supply of U.S. dollars along with capital outflows aimed at Europe’s postwar recovery put downward pressure on the dollar.

Eventually, a series of dollar devaluations in the early 1970s ended the Bretton Woods system, allowing the dollar to be freely traded and freely sold, beginning the long drawn-out period of the falling dollar. [...]