As I toasted a bagel in the kitchen at Fairway this morning, I heard a talking head on TV describe the Christmas Eve market drop as a “classic bear bottom”. A couple of the show’s co-hosts nodded sagely in agreement, but one pressed him. You recognized this as the bottom? …
Opinion
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An Entire Sleeve of Oreos
As the first waves of taxes get prepared, many are finding that they are not getting as large a refund as they expected. This is often due to reworked withholding tables as the IRS tried to make it so fewer taxpayers gave Uncle Sam an interest-free loan this year. This…
Tidbits and the Hardest Thing About Investing
2019 has been great for investors as the S&P 500 gained 8.86% so far (through 2/4/2019) in reaction to the release of my investment philosophy. Ok, maybe there were other factors at play. If you missed the posts, portfolios should be Risk-Aware, Focused, Elegant, and Realistic. There were also some…
Realistic
This is the fourth in a series of posts about my investing philosophy – Realistic. Investors should be realistic about their expectations and the nature of the markets. No one can predict the future. After hearing 10 years of “The easy money has already been made”, it’s clear that most can’t even…
Elegant
This is the third in a series of posts about my investing philosophy – Elegant. The investment process should be elegant, efficient, and low-friction. Before diving into what that means, Tadas at Abnormal Returns has collected posts that remember investing legend Jack Bogle, founder of Vanguard, who recently passed away. If you’ve…
Focused
This is the second in a series of posts about my investing philosophy – Focused. It can be difficult to keep an eye to the big picture without getting distracted by all the different ways to invest. Focus is about maintaining perspective, understanding why we invest and measuring the success of those…
Investing
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Dry Powder
I’ve got some dry powder set aside for a situation just like December. During a bear market (when the market drops 20%), the plan is to deploy half of it into equities. The S&P 500 fell 19.4% from September through Christmas Eve. It was chaos on CNBC. This was the…
Investing
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Risk-Aware
This is the first in a series of posts about my investing philosophy – Risk-Aware. Risk is the permanent impairment of capital. While risk is often viewed as something that happens to a portfolio, it can also be created through the actions of a portfolio’s manager/owner. Be compensated for Risk There…
Happy New Year
To kick off the new year, I’m sharing my investing philosophy. Some concepts are simple while others more complex. They are not immutable rules or laws or instructions, just context I use for investing. Whether I’m doing due diligence on a money manager or listening to a pundit talk his…
The Price of Admission
Everything is down this year except cash and municipal bonds. Headlines are dismal. Volatility is rampant. This isn’t some freak event. It’s the price of admission. Taken as a whole, yes it is unusual to have almost every asset class down in a calendar year. What’s not unusual is the…