Over the past couple of days, I’ve had several conversations about investing. Nothing new there, but a question came up that deserved some serious thought: What do you really believe, or really know, about investing?

I spent this morning reviewing today's economic news in preparation for a TV appearance. I didn't have much of a chance to focus on it in the interview, but fortunately we can discuss it here. The news wasn’t just good, but good in an interesting way.

Where's the best place for your money today?

That's the question I discussed this morning with Opening Bell host Maria Bartiromo on Fox Business Network. Hear my thoughts on how to position your portfolio.

“In Flanders fields the poppies blow / Between the crosses, row on row . . .” — John McCrae

I was in London late last year and had the chance to see the poppy exhibition at the Tower of London. A red ceramic poppy stood for every one of 888,246 soldiers of the British Commonwealth who died in World War I, filling the fields around the Tower.

I’ve been away speaking at Commonwealth conferences for the past 10 days, which were (as usual) a tremendous amount of fun. I even had the chance to take my parents to the last one, in Naples, Florida. They found—and I rediscovered—that there’s no nicer group of people than Commonwealth advisors and staff. I’m tremendously grateful for the opportunity to hang out with these folks, and to show my parents my world.

In this last post on rising interest rates, let's talk about what everyone really wants to know: What do rising rates mean for our investments? As we discussed yesterday, a rate hike probably isn’t imminent, but it’s certainly worth thinking about to get ahead of the risk.

Yesterday, we discussed what the natural interest rate should be, arriving at about 5 percent on a nominal basis, assuming 2-percent inflation. That seems like a reasonable number over time, given that the Federal Reserve has committed to an inflation target of 2 percent. But with interest rates currently far below 3 percent, there’s clearly a gap between what the rate should be and where it is now.

With stocks hitting new highs today, even as the pace of economic growth seems to be slowing, much of the market’s strength appears to be coming from the continued low interest rates provided by the Federal Reserve. Although we don’t know when rates will rise, the general consensus seems to be that it will happen sometime this year.

With that in mind, it’s time to take another look at what happens when rates start to rise, a topic I originally addressed last year.

As I noted yesterday, President Obama and Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, are working to move a new free trade agreement through Congress, based on a shared conviction that it is good for the country. Many Democrats, who do not share that conviction, are fighting it.

To understand what the stakes are here, and what the different sides are fighting for, let’s take a deeper look at how free trade works and how its benefits are distributed.

For the first time in a while, the U.S. has a major free trade agreement on the agenda. Trade is an interesting intersection of economics and politics, as we’ve seen in today’s news, which features President Obama and the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, working together for the first time in, well, ever, to overcome Democrats’ objections.