The USA Today ran a story about a recent college grad who is saving and investing aggressively with the hopes of early retirement. He’s 23 now and would like to retire by age 40. Here’s more on his lofty goal: Frank’s goal is to save $900,000 by age 40. To make that happen, he wants…
When Will The U.S. Have Its Next Recession?
From 1836-1928 the U.S. averaged a recession every 2.1 years. This included seven depressions (they were actually called panics back then) that led to an average contraction of 29% in business activity. Part of this had to do with the fact that the U.S. was on the gold standard at the time, but it’s also true that…
From Great to Good
As I’ve said before, I think Cliff Asness is one of the most interesting characters in the investment management business because he has a great combination of intelligence and humor about the financial markets. So I was glad to hear he was going to be interviewed by Barry Ritholtz for the latest Bloomberg Masters of…
Long-Term Thinking as a Contrarian Approach
One of the most interesting pieces I’ve come across lately deals with an investment firm that’s been managing the pension plan for Tampa’s police and firefighters for over 40 years. There’s a soap opera brewing between the investment firm, Bowen, Hanes, and a consulting firm that doesn’t agree with the way they do things from…
The Most Impressive Behavior Gap in the Mutual Fund Industry
I spend a lot of my time writing about the common mistakes made by investors because I operate under the assumption that cutting down on unforced errors could drastically improve portfolio performance for the majority of investors. The behavior gap between reported fund returns and actual investor returns that results from poorly timed purchases and sales…
Observations From a Decade in the Investment Business
It was recently brought to my attention that it’s been ten years now since I started my first full-time job in the investment industry. More experienced investors might not think this is a very long time, but it feels like an eternity to me considering my current level of understanding compared to what I knew…
Why Should You Care What Anyone Else Does With Their Finances?
The New York Magazine profiled popular blogger Mr. Money Mustache, who is very well known for his frugal ways and the fact that his extremely high savings rate allowed him to retire at the tender age of 30. The piece went through his history and talked about others he has inspired to live a similar…
Risk Management Always Matters
Many of the most intelligent investment thinkers out there today are in agreement that future returns for U.S. stocks and bonds will be subpar. This has been pointed out by many for a number of years now, but eventually it will happen.
How Our Memories Shape Market Cycles
Mark Andreessen laid out some interesting theories on Twitter earlier this week about market cycles: Traders like to say that the market has no memory from day to day. But when stocks are only up roughly 53% of all trading days, any single market session is going to be very noisy. What really matters are longer-term…
Which Investment Generalizations Should You Treat as Fact?
People always say that investing is more of an art than a science. This is true because there’s always an exception to every rule. Caveats abound when dealing with such a small sample size in a complex adaptive system such as the financial markets. So instead of concrete truths, investors are forced to deal in…
