News and Articles on financial markets

Standard & Poor’s 500 index is a stock index that tracks 500 large cap stocks (mostly U.S Companies). The S&P is commonly used to measure the stock market performance.

Normal retirement age is the age you must reach to qualify for your full social secuirty benefits. This is also called as “full retirement age”. Your monthly benefit amount will be reduced if you start collecting benefits before reaching your full retirement age.

Market timing is an investment strategy that attempts to highlight when the stock market is on the verge of moving lower or higher.

There are some penalties if you withdraw money from your retirement savings plans before you reach the eligibility criteria. Withdrawls taken from most of the employer sponsored retirement savings plans taken before age 59 1/2. Ofcourse there are some exceptions  like hardship withdrawls and loans from 401(k) plans, that are fully repaid.