Briefly Noted

Financial Planning
What You Need to Know About Long-Term Care Insurance
Custodial care is expensive and can easily drain financial resources. Because of this, the decision to buy long-term care insurance has become an important financial planning issue. What you need to know.

Bonds
Muni Trading Gets Real: Current Prices on the Internet
Municipal bond trades are now reported on a real-time basis through the InvestinginBonds.com Web site. A look at how individual investors can use this information to buy and sell municipal bonds - and get a handle on bond commissions.

Insurance Products
What You Need to Know About Long-Term Care Insurance
Custodial care is expensive and can easily drain financial resources. Because of this, the decision to buy long-term care insurance has become an important financial planning issue. What you need to know.

Hot Links
Long-Term Care Information on the Web
Sites you can turn to for information on long-term care insurance, including guides to buying a policy and useful information on long-term care services.

Stock Strategies
Margin Accounts: A Double-Edged Sword
A margin account allows you to borrow money from your broker to buy securities. This magnifies returns, both on the upside and downside. The risks of trading on margin, and what you need to know about margin accounts, how they operate, and the reasons for margin calls.

Stock Strategies
Basic Ratios for Building a Dividend-Based Stock Portfolio
Stock prices rise and fall. But there is one constant in stock investing, and that is dividends, which arrive every quarter. How do you build a portfolio of solid dividend-paying stocks? The building blocks you need to get started.

Stock Screens
John Neff's Approach to Contrarian Investing
Searching for stocks with low-price-earnings ratios, solid earnings growth and increasing dividend yields, using the successful approach of the former manager of the Vanguard Windsor Fund.

Departments
Briefly Noted
Current news items of interest to individual investors.

Departments
Letters to the Editor
Member questions and comments on recent AAII Journal articles.