“One of the most important things I’ve learnt over the years is to remember that if you don’t know what is going to happen, don’t structure your portfolio as through you do.” – James Montier According to a recent survey by Edward Jones, 63 % of Americans don’t know how rising interest rates will impact their…

“The secret to building a successful common-stock portfolio isn’t to “beat the stock market” over the next two years, it is to capture its entire return over the next two decades.” – Bill Schulteis I’m always interested in finding simple ways to explain the complex topics that are involved in the world of finance. My…

“Count the perma bears on the Forbes 400 list or the amount of pessimists who run companies in the Fortune 500.  You will find none.”    – Josh Brown “If you’re constructing a portfolio with an overweight against human ingenuity and progress then you’re likely to lose out over the long-term.” – Cullen Roche A…

“To make reliable decisions you must always weigh how right you think you are against how sorry you will be if you turn out to be mistaken.” – Jason Zweig One of the most difficult financial planning questions to answer is: How much do I need to retire? According to BlackRock’s Annual Retirement Survey, 50% of…

“Much of Wall Street is a succession of fashions. But fashion-hitting never has been successfully maintained, to my knowledge.” – Warren Buffett Warren Buffett’s advice is worth listening to not just because he is one of the richest men in the world and the greatest investor of all-time. These reasons do carry weight, but the…

“The financial industry has perfected the art of turning the simple into the complex, and in doing so managed to extract fees for itself!” – James Montier GMO is one of the largest and most respected investment managers in the asset management industry. I’ve had the pleasure of hearing one of their founders, Jeremy Grantham,…

“An investor should be aiming primarily at long period results and judged solely by those.” – John Maynard Keynes Mebane Faber, of Cambria Investment Management, recently created an interesting table on his website that has some important implications for investors.

“I’m in debt. I am a true American!” – Balki Bartokomous, Perfect Strangers Debt plays a large role on our lives. Housing, transportation, education, and even daily spending needs are all financed with debt by a large number of people. According to the Federal Reserve, consumer credit (excluding mortgages) in the US stands at $2.8…

“As hard as it may be to do so, smart investors know that the key to success is ignoring the daily noise of the markets.” – Larry Swedroe It’s easy to say that we should ignore the noise and not pay attention to the market in the short-term. This is a great piece of advice,…

“I have always believed there are no shortcuts to greater understanding.  You simply have to work through the basics.” – Robert Hagstrom Someone recently asked me to put together a simple, easy to understand presentation about saving for retirement that they could share with their work colleagues to go over the basics. Since I champion…