My wife and I attended a wine tasting party a few weeks ago at a friend’s house (21-year-old me can’t believe 37-year-old me just typed that but here we are). Every couple brought the wine of their choice to the party and all of the bottles were then placed in an individual bag with a number…
Ben Carlson
Putting in the Reps
One of the best parts of the on-demand entertainment world we now live in is that you can consume content from people in different formats than you could in the past. When I was in high school and college Late Night with Conan O’Brien show was appointment viewing for me and my friends. His first…
What I Learned From Jack Bogle
Jack Bogle, the legendary founder of Vanguard, passed away yesterday at age 89. He may not be the most well-known investor but he’s had by far the biggest impact on the investing public. Warren Buffett said it best in his 2016 annual report: If a statue is ever erected to honor the person who has…
Animal Spirits Episode 64: The Richest 50%
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 WeWork in trouble? How dominant was Sears before their downfall? What’s the relationship between mortgage rates and home prices? Is demographics really destiny? How has…
Diversification is (Almost) Undefeated
A reader asks: Can this chart be updated easily? Also, are the stats similar for a 60/40 portfolio as they are for just the stock market? This scatterplot would also be cool to see redone with a balanced portfolio. The chart in question here is one I’ve used on a number of occasions, which shows the…
Are Market Moves Happening Faster?
The S&P 500 hit an all-time high on September 20, 2018. A little more than two months later, after a shellacking on Christmas Eve, it had fallen 19.8%. The 95 days from peak to trough was the fastest bear market since the S&P fell 19.3% in just 45 days in 1998. Since bottoming (for the…
Stocks Down, Yields Up
On this week’s Animal Spirits we discussed dividend yields in various stock markets around the globe and how they provide a silver lining during a stock sell-off: Here’s the chart we referred to on the show: Stocks have popped around 10% or so since the massacre on Christmas Eve but this is a nice…
Two Skills That Normally Don’t Go Together
“Perfection of planning is a symptom of decay.” – C. Northcote Parkinson In the lead up to World War II, the French developed an intricate series of concrete fortifications along their borders to prevent the Germans from invading. The Maginot Line was something of an underground fortress created in response to the brutal trench warfare…
Animal Spirits Episode 63: Record Outflows
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: The record outflows from mutual funds. How outflows are impacting passive and active funds differently. Why the S&P 500 is so hard to beat. Investing…
Updating My Favorite Performance Chart for 2018
It’s become an annual tradition on this blog to update asset class returns on an asset allocation quilt I created for a few reasons: (a) Asset allocation is typically the most important aspect of portfolio management so understanding how the various asset classes performed is instructive when trying to understand your results. (b) This is a…
