My “Bad” Personal Finance Posted on March 12, 2018 By Matt “Dad, can we go speed?” I always wondered if my kids would be like me. So when William asked that question on the way to swimming lessons, I knew I could check that box. Yep, this kid inherited the car gene. My dad is a car guy. By today’s standards… Read more
Investing Has the Dow Left You Dazed and Confused? Posted on February 5, 2018 By Matt Let’s set aside the fact that the Dow Jones Industrial Average is a flawed measure of the overall stock market. The media, your parents, and their parents have all accepted the Dow as the standard. Besides, over time the Dow does move in line with the overall market. So instead… Read more
2018 Outlook Posted on January 23, 2018 By Matt I’ve been meaning to post an outlook for 2018, but I kept putting it off. Between the holidays, a sick kid, and my belief that calendar year outlooks are dumb, procrastination has been beating my will to write. No more! Here are my predictions for 2018: If you have been… Read more
Investing Doing Good While (Hopefully) Doing Well Posted on January 17, 2018January 16, 2018 By Matt Each year, BlackRock’s Chairman and CEO, Larry Fink, writes a letter to CEOs of “leading companies” in which BlackRock’s clients are shareholders. Last year’s letter encouraged long-term thinking in the context of a world that is increasingly focused on short-term volatility. This year’s letter strikes a similar tone, but goes… Read more
News Are You More Likely to Cheat with Bitcoin? Posted on December 8, 2017 By Matt I recently spoke with a client who wanted to know what could go wrong with bitcoin. We talked about bitcoin and the monetary system (not a risk now, but who knows in the future) as well as black market applications (greenbacks work just as well or better here). The question… Read more
News Bears, Beats, Bitcoin Posted on December 6, 2017December 6, 2017 By Matt In honor of my favorite vignette from The Office… Question: What kind of bear is best? ‘Tis the season for market predictions (and forgetting last year’s predictions). The optimists predict low single digit returns for equities. The bears predict bear things. Which means no one expects even decent stock market… Read more
My Favorite Posts This Week Posted on November 17, 2017November 16, 2017 By Matt I try to share good posts via Twitter. A bunch of people were writing solid stuff this week: A Little Knowledge is Dangerous – Nick Maggiulli – Surprising stat about survival rates for people lost in the wild. Kids six and under have a surprisingly high survival rate while… Read more
News Moar Bitcoin! Posted on November 16, 2017 By Matt After my last post about Bitcoin, I got a lot of, “So… Bitcoin?” No one has a concrete opinion on this thing except the evangelists, but everyone wants to discuss it. Skeptics seem more concerned about staying in their lane than dragging down crypto – they don’t understand it, they… Read more
News I Changed My Mind On Bitcoin Posted on November 8, 2017 By Matt I changed my mind on Bitcoin a few weeks ago. A bunch of smart people had made public comments on it, generating buzz. I was going to write up a short summary for our investment team with pros and cons, ultimately concluding that Bitcoin was garbage. But then I did… Read more
Investing Tone Deaf on ETFs Posted on October 23, 2017 By Matt A couple of major announcements in the Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) world last week: State Street announced that they slashed the expense ratios on a ton of their ETFs and TD Ameritrade added a ton of ETFs to their ‘no-commission’ platform. At first glance, this is great news. Cheaper beta… Read more