Ben Carlson

The Bull Market That Didn’t End in a Crash

Investors throw around the terms bull market and bear market with ease, but there are so many different ways to define them that it can be somewhat confusing. For some reason, a 20% gain is considered a bull market while a 20% loss is considered a bear market. Why not 19% or 21% or another…

How Innovation is Affecting Market Valuations

This week I had the chance to listen a talk given by the CEO of an aerospace company that ships products all around the globe. He walked the audience through the company’s different transformations over the years and ended his discussion with a short video that demonstrated how their state of the art warehouse works.

The Most Interesting Asset Class Over the Next Decade

Vanguard has a great chart in their latest ETF Perspectives newsletter that gives you a good idea about where risk usually lies during a severe stock market sell-off: Vanguard highlighted high-yield bonds to show how they typically perform worse than other types of bonds during a stock market drop. There are many investors out there…

Chris Sacca on The Power of Incentives

Chris Sacca is on one of the greatest streaks ever for a venture capital investor. He’s been an early-stage investor in companies such as Uber, Instagram, Twitter and Kickstarter. He’s come out of nowhere to become one of the most well-known VCs on the planet because of both his investing prowess and his brash style…

What If Everything Is Overvalued?

Stock valuations are getting into potentially overvalued territory. Bond yields — from government to high yield to corporates — have all fallen precipitously since the financial crisis. Real estate, venture capital and private equity are also likely reaching above average valuation levels. It’s tough for investors to know what to do in this situation. Zero…

The Role of Luck in Your Portfolio

In The Success Equation, Michael Mauboussin tells the story of a man in the 1970s who set out to find a lottery ticket ending with the number 48. He bought the ticket he was looking for and ended up winning the lottery using his lucky numbers. When the man was asked why he wanted that…

How to Tell If You’re Getting Bad Financial Advice

Yesterday I sent out the following tweet after seeing a link from Investment News about how “a million dollar producer has jumped ship”: Obviously, it’s not this guy’s fault that ‘producer’ is really just some industry jargon for how much revenue an advisor or broker is bringing in for the firm.  But if your advisor…

The Golden Age of Asset Allocation

Bill Gross thinks the end is near for a bubble in both stocks and bonds, according to his interview with Andrew Ross Sorkin in the latest New York Times Magazine: Is the bubble in stocks or in bonds? I think both. I sort of have a sense of an ending. I think that the 35-year…

Yeah But…

Being secure in your own investment strategy is tough these days since almost anyone can share their thoughts or make comments on websites, social media and blogs. Everywhere you look there’s a critic who’s willing and able to tear apart someone else’s investment philosophy. This causes the strong adherents to come to the defense of…