The mid-to-late 1990s in Major League Baseball saw a huge uptick in home runs as steroid use became rampant. Records were being shattered every year as everyone ignored how huge these guys were all getting during a time when there was basically no drug testing. The steroids era in baseball coincided with something of a…

The current market environment is a tough one to handicap. On the one hand, there aren’t any flashing warning signs in terms of euphoria from investors. On the other hand, the “most hated bull market of all-time” continues to charge higher, causing valuations and investor allocations to stocks to go far above their long-term averages. There seems…

A friend recently asked for some advice about his investment portfolio. He told me he’s considering a strategy that would involve dollar cost averaging into leveraged ETFs such as the ProShares Ultra S&P 500 3x Leveraged ETF (UPRO). He told me that he understands the increased volatility, the potential for greater drawdowns and possible decay from…

Some day I’ll tell my kids how we used to have to listen to talk radio in the morning, wait for a DJ/VJ to play our favorite song/video or buy an entire album when we liked a couple songs by an artist. Apple Music, YouTube, Spotify and podcasts have completely changed the listening game for the…

It seems young people get blamed for everything these days. Millennials have been accused of killing marriage, home ownership, chain restaurants, diamonds, department stores, face-to-face interaction and pretty much every long, boring sporting event imaginable. They’re also being accused of killing their own net worth. Here’s a recent survey from Bankrate.com:        In particular,…

While the markets can become detached from reality from time-to-time, they are still a very humbling place for those who try to take advantage. The consensus can be wildly wrong at the extremes but most of the time it’s actually painful to fight the current. Being a contrarian feels like a superior position to be…

“An asset allocation is like a wet bar of soap – the more frequently you touch it, the more rapidly it disappears.” – William Bernstein The terms bubble and crash get thrown around far too liberally these days, which makes sense since investors can easily see two large boom-and-bust cycles in the rearview mirror. Many…

One of my guiding principles is that less is more and simple beats complex. I was asked recently why this is the case. I wrote a whole book on this topic that even says “Why Simplicity Trumps Complexity in Any Investment Plan” in the title. While I can’t prove this as 100% fact, here are…

The prospect for lower future returns has many institutional investors scrambling for a savior. During the previous cycle, it was hedge funds. That shift in allocations hasn’t worked out so well. So the latest push has seen money pour into private equity in hopes of juicing returns through the use of leverage in the private…

A reader asks: My question to you is what are some of your financial goals? Do you hope to retire early or try to become financially independent someday to quit your job and do something else? I’d love to hear you address the ERE movement. It’s hard to see a week go by these days…