The Price is Right was my first love when it came to game shows (I always wanted a Plinko board in my house). If you stayed home sick from school there was a good chance you’d be watching the Showcase Showdown. But the show was on during the day so I lost touch with Bob…
Ben Carlson
4 Overlooked Investment Decisions
In the hierarchy of institutional investors, pension plans get picked on the most. Endowments and foundations are the mean girls of this space, generally looking down at their pension brethren because they all assume pensions are the last to the party when it comes to innovative investment ideas. In my experience, this is often unwarranted…
Animal Spirits Ep. 79: Remember Gchat?
This week’s Animal Spirits with Michael & Ben is sponsored by YCharts: Mention Animal Spirits and receive 20% off your subscription price when you initially sign up for the service. We discuss: Tesla’s huge drawdown Why making your stock bets public makes it harder to have an open mind How our perceptions about retirement change over time Why…
Things That Were Said During the Bear Market
We recorded an episode of Animal Spirits called The Bear Market on December 21, 2018 (it aired on December 26). The first 10 minutes or so of the podcast provides a look back into the psychology in the midst of a decent-sized downturn in the stock market.1 We talked about the damage that was inflicted…
Why We Believe in Magic
In 1848, two young sisters in a small town in New York discovered they shared a room in their tiny farmhouse with a mysterious spirit. Margaret and Kate Fox learned of this spirit’s presence through a nightly knocking sound in the walls, floors, and furniture. To summon this mysterious spirit, Kate would knock on the…
What If You Retire at a Stock Market Peak?
Meet Sam. Sam’s entire family has terrible luck when it comes to the timing of their retirement. Sam’s great-grandparents retired at the end of 1928. Over the ensuing three years or so the stock market would drop close to 90% while the U.S. economy would contract nearly 30% in the Great Depression. In 1937, the…
How Hard is it to Become a 401(k) Millionaire?
The current retirement system leaves much to be desired. There are a decent number of people taking advantage of tax-deferred savings vehicles but it’s a fairly small number that ever reaches millionaire status in these accounts. In Fidelity’s defined contribution plan, there are roughly 157,000 people who have saved at least $1 million in their 401(k). There…
Animal Spirits Episode 78: The Re-Readables
This week’s Animal Spirits with Michael & Ben is sponsored by YCharts: Mention Animal Spirits and receive 20% off your subscription price when you initially sign up for the service. We discuss: Is inflation dead? Does a more mature U.S. economy mean lower interest rates and inflation for the foreseeable future? What should we call our new podcast…
The 3 Levels of Wealth
Slack is a lot like Twitter from my vantage point. It’s a service I use all the time. It’s become an integral part of my life from both a work and social perspective. Every time I talk to someone else who uses the service they share my love for the platform. And it’s almost impossible to explain its usefulness…
A Bad Year in the Bond Market is a Bad Day in the Stock Market
A podcast listener asks: I was hoping you could try and explain the bond bubble risk. A third of my portfolio is in a Vanguard bond fund. If there is a bubble, what could I stand to lose in % terms? Here’s a short video Michael and I did on this one: The idea that…
