Since I started publishing my own musings on this blog, one thing that has increasingly struck me, is that I may just be preaching to the choir. When reading comments on posts that I’ve written, I’ve detected a pattern. People who are already savers, are often attracted to the ideas of early retirement theory. Likewise, […]
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Worst Case Scenario
There are no free lunches in investing. The only possible exceptions to this axiom are diversification, and value investing, both of which have the potential to increase portfolio returns relative to risk. Aside from these exceptions, however, risks and returns are inextricably linked. If you want higher returns, you must accept the higher risk of […]
Stop Being Active!
The most central message you can glean from my posts on early retirement is that you should save more of your take-home pay. Why? Because small changes in your spending and savings patterns will work out to dramatic changes in your future financial freedom. Both in terms of time and money. But if there’s a […]
Herding Cats
One of the main challenges of managing an investment portfolio is organization. If you’re an average investor you likely won’t have just one 401(k) account. You’ll have a collection of accounts from prior jobs. Maybe you’ll also have invested in an IRA along the way. Perhaps a personal investment account has been thrown in there […]
Death and Taxes
If I were to design a tax system it would be simple and progressive. The rates would be largely lower than the current rates because there would be no deductions. Income would defined simply. Any money earned in any manner would be income and there would be no distinction made between money earned by labor, […]
E-value-tion
In William Bernstein’s excellent book The Intelligent Asset Allocator, he really gets into minutiae on a host of market issues. Almost every aspect of portfolio theory is inspected, weighed, run through models, graphed, and dissected. You had me at “inspected” Dr. Bernstein. One section which I particularly enjoyed was his discussion of value investing. In […]
Top Secret
Tonight I introduce you to my top-secret portfolio. To read this is to understand my values. I am laying bare my innermost investment secrets. And without further ado: Overall Makeup Total stocks 72%. (68.5%– 75.5%) Domestic stocks 43%. (40.5%– 45.5%) International stocks 29%. (26.5% – 31.5%) Total bonds 28%. (25.5% […]
Swimming Upstream
One of the exhortations I find myself writing most frequently in this blog, is “read some books.” Specifically, this comes up when I am talking about the importance of reading books on investment theory in order to develop your own personal investment strategy and portfolio. What’s the thinking behind this? It’s not just that […]
Looking in the Gift Horse’s Mouth
I had an interesting conversation at work today. One of my friends (let’s call him “the Spaniard.”) works for a large company. It turns out his company gives him a pretty sweet deal. Every year he is able to buy up to 5% of his salary in the companies stock. The sweet part of the […]
Putting Down Pennies
In a previous post, I acknowledged the sad fact that investing is not that interesting to everyone. If you are one of those incomprehensible beings who would rather think about art or sports or fashion or celebrity or literature rather than the nitty-gritty of investment theory, I confided in you that that was okay. I […]
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