Personal Finance

Whether you decide to use an investment professional or not, it's important to understand what your investment choices are and how different types of investments put your money to work. Some factors that make a difference in your investment selection are your goals, or what you want to accomplish by investing, and the time frames for meeting those goals. It's also important to have a handle on your attitude toward risk, or what's called your risk tolerance.

In a financial emergency, you may be able to tap into your 401(k) plan assets in the form of a loan. But while taking a loan may help solve an immediate financial need, there can be consequences that may reduce your long-term financial security.

Open enrollment is an employee's annual opportunity to choose a medical, dental or vision plan; change or start flexible spending accounts; or add or drop dependents to insurance coverage. It's also a time to take stock of retirement savings plans.

Aging can change many things in a person's life, including the ability to manage one's own money. Given this sobering reality, here are some important steps to plan for diminished financial capacity and illness.

FINRA and the SEC's Office of Investor Education and Advocacy (OIEA) issued an investor advisory to explain the pilot and how it might affect certain orders you place with your full-service or online brokerage firm. We also provide some background on the pilot and why it is being implemented.

It can be difficult to recover assets lost to fraud or other scenarios in which an investor has experienced a problem with an investment. But there are legitimate ways to attempt recovery. In most cases, you can do so on your own—at little or no cost.

It's an alluring offer. You hear from someone who claims to be able to help you recover money you lost from a previous investment. The catch? They want you to pay money upfront for the recovery "services," which in some cases are purely fraudulent. FINRA is alerting investors, particularly those who live outside the U.S., that offers to recover money lost from securities investments may be fraudulent.

Many firms have trained staff and resources to help the living address brokerage account estate matters. While specific procedures vary, brokerage firms tend to follow a fairly similar process of transitioning accounts to heirs and beneficiaries when a brokerage account owner dies. Once a firm has been notified of the death of an account holder, which should be done in a timely manner, here are some things you can expect.

This Alert provides information and tips about "mystery shopper," "modeling" and other job-search scams in which individuals receive checks that appear to be from legitimate companies—including FINRA.

You've been saving for your child's higher education for a long time, and now it's time to start tapping it to pay for college costs. We all learn by doing, but when it comes to tax-advantaged savings such as a 529 College Savings Plan (where the IRS is looking over your shoulder), it's best not to make any rookie mistakes. Keep these tips in mind as you make your freshman withdrawals from your 529 savings account.