The Secret Wall Street Doesn’t Want You to Know
I am not endorsing any political views, but I did note an observation made by Bernie Sanders in the recent Democratic presidential primary debate. He stated that Wall Street’s “business model is greed and fraud.” There’s a lot of data...
Your Most Valuable Asset Is Yourself
Years ago, my colleagues and I conducted a fairly large-scale research project. We interviewed a bunch of high-income professionals who provided professional services. This group included doctors, dentists and lawyers, and like most of us, they earned money only when...
When an Expense Becomes a Wise Investment Choice
Ask someone how they invest, and you’ll probably get a pretty standard answer involving stocks, bonds and maybe some real estate or cash. But rarely will people mention something that is even more important: their investments in human capital. They...
Rising Rates Don’t Doom REITs
As we have discussed many times, much of the “conventional wisdom” on investing is simply wrong. For our purposes, we can define conventional wisdom as those ideas that become so commonly accepted that they go unquestioned. Today we’ll look at...
The Agony and the Ecstasy: Risks and Rewards of a Concentrated Stock Position
It’s been said that diversification is the only free lunch in investing because, done properly, an investor can reduce risk without reducing their expected return. Yet despite this wisdom, many individuals hold concentrated positions in a single stock when they...
The Market Humbles Junk Bond Fund Managers
Do you remember the scene from It’s A Wonderful Life—only the best holiday movie ever—when George and Mary Bailey are cruising out of Bedford Falls on their well-earned honeymoon, only to notice a literal run on the banks (including the...
Avoiding Caregiver Burnout During the Holidays
By Sylvia Nissenboim Both caregiving for an elderly loved one and preparing for the holidays can come with a lot of joy, but also some unintended stress. As such, it’s vital that caregivers don’t overload themselves as they balance the...
The Federal Reserve and Rising Rates
With the recent spate of positive economic news, highlighted by the strong jobs numbers for both October and November, all signs point toward the Federal Reserve raising the federal funds target rate 25 basis points from 0–0.25 percent to 0.25–0.50...
Let Go of Irrational Fears
When we talk about the chances of something bad happening, people tend to fall into three general groups. The Numbers Don’t Matter No matter the odds, this group dismisses the statistics. People insist they can trust their gut. I suspect...
A Game You Shouldn’t Play
It seems like almost every week a new study appears to debunk the myth of active management. This week was no exception. Robin Powell, a U.K.-based journalist and financial blogger, discussed a recent study that covered 561 U.K.-based stock funds...
