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CNNMoney.com - Personal Finance

Helping kids buy homes

Posted: December 8th, 2011, 3:23pm MST

With the economy in turmoil and mortgage money tight, it's not easy to buy a home these days, especially for young adults. Many are getting helping hands from their parents.
Jeff Cardon plays it small and safe

Posted: December 8th, 2011, 1:39pm MST

For Jeff Cardon, small is big. Cardon has been running the Wasatch Small Cap Growth Fund since its 1986 inception. In fact, Cardon, 54, who's also chief executive of Salt Lake City-based Wasatch Advisors, has never worked at any other firm (his only other job was driving a bread truck during college). That longevity fits Wasatch's style: Cardon likes to buy small-cap growth stocks that can stay in the portfolio for a decade, growing 15% a year or more. The strategy has paid off for investors. The $1.5 billion fund (currently open only to new investors directly through Wasatch) has returned an average of 6.1% over the past decade, compared with 5.0% for the category and 2.7% for the S&P 500, according to Morningstar. Cardon sat down with Fortune to talk about why the key question today is not large cap vs. small cap but safety vs. risk, why he's looking overseas, and why a trucking company is one of the best-managed corporations he's seen in 30 years in the business.
A Manhattan apartment for $165,000 -- a month

Posted: December 8th, 2011, 1:23pm MST

This luxury residence in New York's famed Plaza Hotel once hosted foreign royalty, American presidents and some of the world's wealthiest people. Now you can live there for a mere $1.98 million a year in rent.
Controlling your personal debt

Posted: December 8th, 2011, 11:48am MST

1. Americans are loaded with credit-card debt.
Harvard B-school lands on top once again

Posted: December 8th, 2011, 9:30am MST

(Poets&Quants) -- Dimming employment prospects on Wall Street may be causing some jitters on campus, but the mood at Harvard Business School is decidedly upbeat. Many students came back from their summer internships with lucrative job offers in hand, and for the first time in the school's history, the entire first year class of some 900-plus MBA students is about to embark next month on an eight-day global immersion experience. "We are feeling the pressure of final exams and projects," says Jehan deFonseka, a second-year student who is also editor of The Harbus, the B-school's student newspaper. "One of my professors, Joe Lassiter, gave us the advice, 'Die exhausted, not bored.' So far, this year has lived up to that belief." And now the school is about to get a pre-holiday present of sorts. For the second consecutive year, Harvard bested all other business schools for the distinction of best MBA program in the U.S., according to a new ranking by PoetsandQuants.
Top 10 MBA programs in the U.S.

Posted: December 8th, 2011, 9:15am MST

Which schools have the best job placement records and strongest programs? Here's this year's Poets&Quants ranking of the best of the best MBA programs in the U.S.
Think virtual meetings are hard? You're right

Posted: December 8th, 2011, 7:52am MST

A communications coach explains how to make sure people get what you're trying to say, even if they're also checking their BlackBerrys.
The safest places to put your money now

Posted: December 8th, 2011, 5:26am MST

It's never easy to answer the question that Fortune poses in its annual Investor's Guide: Where should you put your money now? The response, of course, depends on your individual situation -- your finances, your goals, your tolerance for risk, your time horizon, and your staying power. All of which only you can know. This year it's far more difficult than usual for anyone to answer this question, because the financial world is even more unstable than it was in 2008-09, when U.S. markets were in free fall and fear ran rampant. Back then, only the U.S. seemed scarily messed up.
10 best stocks for 2012

Posted: December 8th, 2011, 5:21am MST
Get more from your donation to charity

Posted: December 8th, 2011, 3:30am MST

Like many Americans, you're probably gearing up this month to write a check to your favorite charity, both to show your goodwill toward men and to nab some last-minute tax savings. (December tends, after all, to be the most generous month, with about $28 billion in donations recorded last year, according to the Atlas of Giving.)