The Fund Industry in Charts

There are a number of periodic research pieces I read whenever they come up — JP Morgan’s Guide to the Markets, the Credit Suisse Yearbook, and the Investment Company Institute’s Fact Book to name a few. The ICI’s annual Fact Book provides a deep dive on past trends and where things currently stand in fund…

All The Jobs I Didn’t Get

When I graduated from college in 2005 or so it took me a while to find a job. This was mostly my own fault because I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and didn’t put in the time to actually figure out the type of role or company I was…

Animal Spirits: Michael’s Fitness Pal

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: Are the tech companies going to make us all fat and lazy? Some good news for once in retirement saving data The huge growth in tax-deferred…

What Should I Do With My Inheritance?

A reader asks: My wife and I recently had a retirement and inheritance discussion with her parents. During our conversation it was mentioned how much they plan to leave for inheritance. We’re already on track to retire in our early 60s. However, I’m curious if I should try to incorporate the additional inheritance, it’s a…

7 Things to Buy When You Have Kids (That No One Tells You About)

When people find out you’re having a baby people are more than happy to tell you everything you need to buy (and exactly how to be a parent). Despite getting plenty of advice from pretty much every other parent I know before I had kids, there are some things that slipped through the cracks. Here’s…

What Inning Are We In?

A podcast listener asks: What inning are we in? This question was asked tongue-in-cheek but it’s still worthy of a serious answer because so much time and energy are devoted to figuring out where we stand in the market or economic cycle. Here’s what I had to say about this one on Instagram: I ran…

Financial Superpowers

While trying to boil down the many reasons for Warren Buffett’s long-term success, Alan Greenspan once told the Oracle, “Warren, it strikes me that if you did nothing else you never sell. That is, if you can grit your teeth through and just disregard short-term declines in the market or even long-term declines in the…

Animal Spirits Ep. 81: The Rorschach Test

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: Has Buffett lost his touch? If he were starting today from scratch how well would Buffett perform? Charlie Munger still going strong at age 95. Is…

Why You’ll Never Invest in the Next Big Short

There were a handful of investors who made a boatload of money betting against the housing market in 2007 by shorting subprime mortgages through the use of credit default swaps and such. John Paulson is the most notable, earning a $20 billion profit for his fund along with an estimated $4 billion for himself in…

Re-Kindled: The Big Short

It’s been almost a decade since The Big Short by Michael Lewis came out and I recently realized I’d forgotten too much of this wonderful book. So Michael and I decided to re-read this one and turn our discussion about it into a new podcast called Re-Kindled.1 We will be doing more of these in…