Gold is one of those investments that attracts extreme viewpoints and ideological arguments that favor narratives over substance. I think the reason for this is because the U.S. was once on the gold standard, which was more or less replaced by the Federal Reserve as a form of monetary policy. Anytime politics and government is…

One of the outcomes from the recent financial crisis is what I consider to be a hypersensitivity to risk by many investors who were caught flat-footed during the market crash. While managing and understanding risk is one of the most important jobs an investor has, I think many have taken things a step too far…

In a post earlier this week I wrote about famed hedge fund manager Michael Steinhardt’s impressive track record from the late-1960s to the late-1970s. A few readers commented to me that nothing could be discerned from Steinhardt’s track record because it’s nearly impossible to separate luck from skill when making these types of historical performance…

Every retiree’s dream investment is to find safety in principal and earn enough income to not have to touch that principal. In a world of zero percent short-term interest rates, this is easier said than done. These days there’s no such thing as living off the interest income anymore. In the understatement of the year,…

If you sold your stocks the Friday before Lehman went bankrupt, went to cash & stayed there you would have missed out on a gain of 93%— Ben Carlson (@awealthofcs) July 14, 2015 What I failed to mention in this tweet is that in order to earn that 93% gain, an investor would have had…

The following comes from the Los Angeles Times about CalPERS, the nation’s largest public pension plan:

“The stock market is an inexact phenomenon. Laypersons’ opinions often seem as worthy as professionals’, and shoeshine men and brokers compete for genius.” – Michael Steinhardt Jerry Seinfeld and Steve Harvey had an interesting conversation on a recent episode of one of my favorite shows, Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, about whether comedy is something…

A reader asks: I am hoping to retire early and would be interested in your thoughts on early retirement, how to plan for early retirement and how to approach saving/investments in order to meet an early retirement goal. Harry Sit, who writes The Finance Buff blog, is someone who is actually at the point where…

The U.S. has the largest, most liquid financial markets in the world. We also have one of the most globalized set of corporations that make up our stock market. The S&P 500 now gets something in the order of 40% of its sales from overseas. Based on this information, I’ve been asked the following question…

Things are starting to get interesting in the markets. Over the past couple of weeks, there’s been a constant barrage of bad news coming out about Greece, China, and Puerto Rico. Then yesterday the New York Stock Exchange decided to have a “technical glitch” and shut down for a few hours. Regardless of whether this…