One aspect of life that’s often overlooked is insurance—car, health, life, etc. Being smart fiscally isn’t just about owning some stocks or real estate; it’s about having your entire life portfolio in order.

In America, we’re greatly underinsured. One stat that’s floating out there says that only 47% of U.S. households own any individual life insurance. Are you one of the uninsured? Most people rely on their employer to provide their insurance needs. What about the self-employed?

Recently, I embarked on a journey to teach children about the importance of understanding money. I think it’s important to get them started young. One idea I had was to have them purchase one share of Disney stock and frame it.

As it turns out, some adults were asking me how they could do this as well.

Last year I started looking into whether or not Yahoo (Symbol: YHOO) might rebound. I determined that if they did, it would be quite some time. And it looks like I was right.

This month has been particularly hard for Yahoo stockholders. Just one month ago Yahoo’s stock was at $23.80. Today, it fell to $19.18—a 24% decline. So we’ve got to ask the question. Just where is the bottom for Yahoo?

As any successful stock trader knows, you always need to educate yourself. Recently, I stumbled upon a Web site that I thought reader might be interested in checking out. I must point out that I’m not endorsing the site (I don’t do that).

MentoringStockTraders.com is a site by Todd Mitchell. He’s offering to teach you how about swing-trading stocks weekly for big profits.

On Wednesday Starbucks (SYMBOL: SBUX) announced that it plans to expand its European operations in 2008.

Currently, two stores are planned. Sofia will be the base for the Bulgarian store and Lisbon will be home for the Portuguese store.

Starbucks didn’t announce opening dates, but this may be the first of many as the company looked to extend its leverage overseas.

The news comes as Starbucks’ stock at least temporarily halted its freefall. Three months ago the stock was near $30. This week it neared $20.

Just a couple months ago Blockbuster (Symbol: BBI) looked to be on the way up. In fact, it did climb. But, the bottom fell out and it dipped down into the $3 arena.

Many investors have left for greener pastures, but one is taking advantage of the newfound value.

The proposed settlement failed and now American Airlines has taken legal action against Google (Symbol: GOOG). The lawsuit is based on Google’s sponsored ads.

According to AA, when a search term that’s trademarked by American Airlines is entered into Google, rivals of American Airlines are also shown in the “sponsored links” section.

A Reuters article today said Google feels like it is on solid ground.

The stock market is fierce right now. Many on Wall Street are talking about how they’ve never seen a ride like this. Even the pros are having a tough time. But, is there money to be made?

I’ve been following Hovnanian Enterprises (Symbol: HOV) for some time and it’s been a trading bonanza of late. Just today, the stock dropped to $10.83 and then rose to a close of $12.57.

In after-hours trading, HOV dropped 7% to $11.68. Tomorrow could be another good day to trade this stock.

It’s an interesting battle that’s been heating up—Netflix (Symbol: NFLX) vs. Blockbuster (Symbol: BBI).

Blockbuster was the new kid on the block. Netflix was the Internet-savvy rental service that’s been growing like mad since 1999.

If you’ve seen the commercials, you know that Blockbuster is playing up their brick and mortar stores as an advantage over Netflix. And it appears to be working.

Recently, Netflix announced that it lost subscribers—55,000. More significant than the lost subscribers is the fact that this is the first time Netflix has announced a decline in subscribers—proof that Blockbuster is affecting them.

As a way to fight back, Netflix touted that, unlike Blockbuster, it offered movies you could watch instantly online. That all changed today.

Revlon (Symbol: REV) reported a second-quarter loss of $11.3 million, or two cents per share, Wednesday.

President and Chief Executive David Kennedy cited multiple reasons for the smaller than expected loss.

Sales growth, benefits from restructuring actions started last year, and cost control shaped second-quarter performance, Kennedy said.

Revlon surged upward on the news. Shares roses 12.5% and closed at $1.17 on Wednesday.