Let’s face the facts. Nobody likes to be called emotional. Nobody likes to be told they are acting irrationally. As Rory Sutherland in his book Alchemy says, “When we do put a name to non-rational behavior, it is usually a word like ’emotion’, which makes it sound like logic’s evil twin. ‘You’re being emotional’ is used as code for ‘you’re being an idiot.’” But investing exists in a world full… Read More
The 2020 Lessons of “Let’s Wait and See”
2020 offered two particularly abject lessons on why “Let’s wait and see.” is almost always a terrible strategy. COVID. The presidential election. “Let’s wait and see.” can take many forms. “I just want to get out because of the uncertainty of (insert scary event). Once things calm down and return to normal, we’ll get back in.” Statements like this typically follow a period of market decline or when there is… Read More
Nobody Saw This Coming, Part Two
Last year around this time, I wrote a post titled, Nobody Saw This Coming about the performance of the markets in 2019 when it surprised everyone. Then 2020 came along and said, “Hold my beer.” Nobody saw the global pandemic coming. Nobody could have presumed global shutdowns. Nobody saw a 34% decline over 33 days. In part, because that combination of things had never happened during the life of anyone… Read More
“Wealth is What You Don’t See”
One of my favorite books of the year was written by Morgan Housel titled, The Psychology of Money. It may be the most accessible lesson on money that I have ever read. I judge the quality of the book based on how much I highlight it, and I highlighted this book as much as any. Below, I will share a few of my favorite quotes from just two chapters. My… Read More
Time to Review Your Risk Management Plan
This fall, I conducted reviews of client risk management plans and found some interesting things I’d like to share with you in hopes that you might review your own situation to ensure you are prepared for the “what ifs” in your life. To save you some time, here are a few issues I came across on multiple occasions: Out-of-date beneficiary designations. (Most popular.) Too little liability coverage on auto &… Read More
The Ultimate Retirement Lever
There are plenty of technical planning topics that can add value to your financial life that range from tax optimization to long-term care planning to estate planning. But if you blow up your portfolio, each one of those planning areas is exponentially worse off which is why I write so much about the simple value of staying the course through all markets. Imagine that around March 23rd of this year,… Read More
Who Would’ve Thought?
On 24 November, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) closed above 30,000 for the first time ever. In case you’ve forgotten, on March 23rd, the DJIA closed at 18,214. This is a rebound of about 65% in a period of about eight months’ time. Let’s also not forget how loud the doomsayers had become in their war chant of “this is the end of the world as we know it.”… Read More
Using “Enough” to Find Contentment
Perhaps the greatest benefit (albeit it was unknown to me at the time) of contributing to the book, How I Invest My Money, was that I was sent a beautifully framed version of the personalized sketch Carl Richards put together for my chapter. Though this wasn’t the case for many of the contributors, it’s quite obvious where his sketch idea came from for my chapter. I said, “For me, enough… Read More
We Are the News We Consume
I am a willing consumer of the “self-improvement” section of the bookstore. After two decades of reading these books, it occurred to me why the continuous reading of these style books is helpful. It’s because we have short memories and need constant reinforcement of these ideas if they are to become a reality. As I have been writing this blog for almost three years, I believe this same benefit is… Read More
Why Bond Duration Matters to Your Portfolio
As I have written about extensively since the Fed aggressively cut interest rates, bonds are in a tough spot. Because I continue to get questions on why I feel so strongly about the precarious nature of bond investing at current, I want to share some additional information and perspective on why I feel the way that I do. I think providing a little bond investing education here will be time… Read More
