The investment landscape can be confusing to navigate. You may hear friends, family or investment professionals throw around terms like stocks, bonds and mutual funds without knowing exactly what each means and the differences between them. Most people are familiar with savings accounts at banks, but in order to save for retirement and other financial goals it's important to understand...

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You can't predict the future, but you can try to predict -- or hedge against -- how much certain goods will cost when they arrive. A futures contract obligates a buyer to take delivery of a good, or commodity, on a specific date. On the other end of the contract is a seller who is responsible for delivering those items...

Alpha is the return on an investment that's incrementally more than a benchmark index such as the S&P 500 or another appropriate benchmark. Alpha is used as a yardstick when an investor chooses an active investment strategy, meaning they're trying to outperform the market. So alpha is a way to measure how much extra juice a good investment manager can...