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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
If you only followed the daily swings in the market it may not feel like stocks are going gangbusters in 2019. The average daily gain for the S&P 500 this year is up just 0.19% (the median is 0.14%). There have only been 9 daily gains in excess of 1% this year (with 3 down days…
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…
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…
