Personal Finance

An eye for investing

Robert Freedland, MD, who works at Mayo Clinic Health System in La Crosse, Wis., is a stock market investor for the past 43 years.

The upheaval in our current economy is changing the ground rules for skillful handling of personal finances. Some of the time-honored methods for building and maintaining a secure financial future for you and your family need to be modified while today's unpredictable financial crisis runs its course. Here are seven tips from the experts that will help you to come out on top once the financial storm has abated.

Planning for retirement may seem like a daunting task, but physicians who have a good understanding of the basic instruments of investing-stocks and bonds-need not worry.

For those in the know, the AMT has become the tax equivalent of the boogeyman. Unfortunately, unlike the object of children's nightmares, this lurking threat is all too real. Calculated alongside ordinary income tax for all households, the AMT erases many standard deductions to which Americans have become accustomed. Taxpayers then must pay whichever tax is higher.

The president, president-elect, and executive vice president of the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) recently offered a "state-of-the-profession" message during the opening session of the AAO annual meeting in Chicago. All three executives shared in a celebration of past achievements, current conditions, and future opportunities in ophthalmology

Paris—Fovea Pharmaceuticals SA, a biopharmaceutical company working to discover, develop, and commercialize drugs to treat retinal diseases, announced the closing of a $25 million equity financing round.

Doctors have clearly discovered the lure of pre-tax savings, and are making the most of opportunities to sock away as much as they can.