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Peter Thiel, a co-founder of PayPal Holdings Inc.
PYPL,
has grown his Roth individual retirement account to $5 billion, even though he has not contributed to it since 1999, according to ProPublica.
Considering that IRAs are tax-advantaged accounts meant to encourage people to save money for retirement and have limits on who can contribute and how much they can contribute, that eye-popping number points to possible legislation to reform Roth IRA rules. Then again, it’s good for anyone concerned about funding a comfortable retirement to learn about IRAs work.
Alessandra Malito explains how Thiel built his nest egg and how Roth IRAs work.
Inflation worries
Consumer prices have been rising at their fastest pace since 2008, but some spikes in prices aren’t reflected in government data. There’s no question that inflation is on the mind of consumers and investors — any rumor of tighter Federal Reserve monetary policy can cause quick broad selloffs in financial markets.
Here’s a sampling of coverage included on MarketWatch’s new inflation page:
Bitcoin’s volatility
Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
The price of bitcoin
BTCUSD,
in U.S. dollars fell 14% over a week through June 24 to $33,066, according to CoinDesk data. It was still up 14% from the end of last year, even though it was down 49% from the all-time intraday high of $64,788 on April 14.
Mark DeCambre discusses bitcoin’s recent decline and technical signs that more pain may lie ahead.
More coverage of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies:
A fascinating stock-market warning tied to your investment habits
Such a long period of low interest rates has caused many investors — maybe including you — to put an increasing percentage of portfolio money into stocks. Mark Hulbert shows that a rising allocation of portfolios to equities is correlated with low stock-market returns over long periods.
ETF Wrap — a bounceback for ARKK
MarketWatch illustration/iStockphoto
In his ETF Wrap column, Mark DeCambre points to a remarkable comeback this month for the Ark Innovation exchange-traded fund
ARKK,
lists the week’s best and worst-performing ETFs and explains how individual investors are changing this part of the money management world.
Related: Sure, you can trade ETFs anytime — and that’s the problem
How your thought process can hurt your investment performance
We all have biases — they are necessary short cuts to help us navigate a world where we are continually bombarded with too much information. But these shortcuts in our thinking not only can lead to problems interacting with others, they can lead to repeat patterns of poor investment decision-making.
Robert Powell breaks down seven behavior biases that hurt us as investors and how to counter them.
A free $1 million financial education
Getty Images
Paul Merriman shares free resources to help you or family members build wealth.
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