Provo, Utah- Paragon Wealth Management’s financial advisers encouraged investors to consider alternatives to treasury bills until rates move back up. “Treasury bills yield nothing,” said Dave Young, president and founder of Paragon Wealth Management. “Bonds and gold could have significant risk at these levels, which are near all-time highs. Both are owned for safety but ironically carry significant downside risk going forward. A home makes some sense because values are low, but it's hard to...

In an environment where interest rates are at historic lows where does one go for yield? As the baby boomers start to retire there will be a higher demand for fixed-income type investments of all types. The effects of the ’08-’09 financial crisis, the European debt crisis, and worries over our fiscal future have caused investors to flood into bonds and out of stocks. According to data from the Investment Company Institute which tracks fund flows, from 2009 to March of this year investors...

Secrets to Building Wealth Building Wealth is difficult. It's somewhat like a gauntlet. According to Sports Illustrated 60% of NBA athletes and 80% of NFL athletes are broke within five years of retiring. I've seen similar stats for beneficiaries of life insurance policies, lottery winners and trust fund recipients. Even the best managers have a tough time staying ahead of the markets. The legendary Warren Buffett only generated a 6.2% for the first quarter versus 12.6% for the S&P...

Stock markets around the world rallied strongly during the first quarter of 2012. After the extreme volatility last year, many investors abandoned ship and headed for the hills...just in time to miss this entire rally. The irony is that selling to "protect" actually cost them dearly. This rally has confounded many. Market experts have called for a selloff ever since last November. In the face of all their pessimism this market has steadily trended up. Every attempted selloff has been met...

Forget the new breed of nontraded REITs, says Green Street Advisors Inc. Investors are far more likely to be better off with publicly traded REITs, the research firm said in a report released Wednesday. Regulatory scrutiny has forced sponsors of nontraded REITs to address issues surrounding valuations, illiquidity, high fees, dividend payouts and conflicts, the report said. One crucial change: the introduction of daily net-asset-value estimates by several sponsors, as better pricing...

Paragon Wealth Management advised conservative investors to think twice when investing in CDs or money market funds. “Investors who save money in CDs and money market funds don’t have a lot of options right now,” said Dave Young, president and founder of Paragon Wealth Management. “With inflation rates at 3 to 4 percent and interest rates between 0.5 and 1.9 percent, savers are actually losing money in their "conservative" accounts.” Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, said they’ll...

Our national debt is a very serious matter but because it is such a large number it takes it out of the realm of reality and makes it difficult to understand. This short video helps put it into perspective.

Is this the first move in the long awaited end to the bond bull market or just a short-term blip? Treasury yields shot up yesterday after comments by the Federal Reserve seemed to indicate that since the economy is picking up there would not be a need for another round of bond purchases. Interest rates have been pushed to historic lows due to slow economic growth, central bank purchases, flight to safety moves (i.e., European credit fears), and general investor aversion to equities. Due to...

Paragon Wealth Management’s growth portfolio, Top Flight, increased 410.7 percent from January 1998 through February 2012. “We are happy to see these numbers over a 14-year time span in our growth portfolio,” said Dave Young, president and founder of Paragon Wealth Management. Young designed Top Flight in January 1998 to be a dynamic, overall solution for the growth portion of a portfolio. It is specifically for the growth-oriented investor.

The price of gold fell over $90 today to close just below $1700/ounce. That would be the same as the Dow falling 650 points! Moves like this highlight my view of the risk inherent in owning gold at these prices. The fall was due to comments by Fed Chairman Bernanke before Congress today where he indicated that QE3 will probably not be needed. Initially many thought that the downward move was just a kneejerk reaction but then it continued down. What I find interesting is that many gold...