I received some feedback from my post last week, Pessimism Abounds, regarding whether or not I am just wearing rose-colored glasses given the state of the world. It’s hard to argue with the state of the world argument in any kind of an immediate time frame. As I was receiving this feedback, I received the following quote from Ryan Holiday’s Daily Stoic email, which I highly recommend by the way. The building where Daily Stoic’s HQ is located, on Main Street in…
With the hyper-partisan election in front of us and the COVID-inspired economic drawdown in our rearview, I find myself returning over and over again to the same question: “Is it possible that we are both too pessimistic in the short-term and too pessimistic about the long-term prospects of the market?” I’m not saying that we are, I’m just asking the question of whether it’s possible? Since 2008, I can think of very few scenarios where the pundits and investing public…
Most retirees are all about getting the most “bang for their buck” in every facet of life. We all are. It would be hard to get more bang for your buck than by delaying Social Security by even just one year. Before you click away from another delay Social Security piece, hang with me as I’d be surprised if you have thought about it in quite this way before. That is how you might view delaying Social Security as the…
A couple of weeks ago, Apple “lost” $179 Billion in market cap in a single day. It has gone on to lose over $500 billion in market cap over the past few weeks. As I write this, Apple is valued at about $1.9 Trillion. I have heard people asking the question, “Should I just own tech since that is so obviously the future?” At the very least, more people are talking about increasing their allocation to tech investments as if…
*There is a book being released on November 17, 2020 that I believe will be one of the best finance books of the year. The book is titled: “How I Invest My Money: Finance Experts Reveal How They Save, Spend and Invest.” It was brilliantly put together by Joshua Brown and Brian Portnoy and each contribution includes a beautiful illustration from Carl Richards. I am thankful I was asked to contribute and I thought the best way to introduce the…
It is safe to say that politics are a touchy subject. It’s made even more touchy by the extremists on both sides who think that anyone taking an opposing view are beyond incompetent. These people color the waters of the more moderate (and level-headed) middle. Politics are personal though. What I have observed over the past four election cycles is the intersection of politics and investing. It’s what I want to address briefly here since it is invariably going to…
The predictions for dividend cuts sounded dire for quite some time. Many were predicting cuts of between 20%-30% here in the U.S. The jury is still out for now, but it doesn’t seem as likely based on what the data has shown thus far from Janus Henderson in their Global Dividend Index report. Here is their record of dividend cuts with regard to global dividends: Global dividends fell $108.1bn to $382.2bn in the second quarter. The headline 22.0% decline (19.3%…
In Howard Marks latest memo, Time for Thinking, he makes the following observation: Lower interest rates increase the discounted present value of future cash flows and reduce the a priori return demanded from every investment. In layman’s terms, when the fed funds rate is zero, 6% bonds look like a giveaway, so buyers bid them up until they yield less (thus I believe 97% of outstanding bonds yield less than 5% today, and 80% yield less than 1%). (emphasis mine)…
NOTE: I originally published this post just before the COVID market decline on 19 February. As markets have returned to near-record levels, I wanted to bring the post back to the top of the feed because if you felt yourself rethinking your investment strategy through the COVID decline, I think this article might help you in preparing for whatever might come next. Investors love to talk about risk. What’s the downside risk? How can you hedge your risk? How can…