Inflation in 2022 has been the highest since the early 1980s. In general, this is bad news as the cost of everything goes up. One rare silver lining is that contribution limits for 401(k)s and IRAs is linked to inflation. This means that contribution limits are increasing substantially in 2023. The table below shows some […]
I’ll Buy More When the Market Goes Down, Except When it Goes Down
2022 has been a challenging year for investing, with the longest bear market since 2008. The Fed seems serious about controlling inflation, and higher interest rates are seldom good for stock performance. When the market peaked at the end of 2021, many investors were eager to invest more. At that time, if you asked investors […]
Twenty Years
Twenty years ago, I was living in San Jose, California where I worked for a tech company. I remember waking up on the morning of 9/11 and turning on CNBC a little after 7 am Pacific time. The image of one of the Twin Towers was on the screen. I thought it was strange that […]
Investing Lessons Learned in 2020
2020 was a crazy year for investment markets. Covid was the first worldwide pandemic since the Spanish Flu over 100 years before. Markets were slow to react to the initial news about Covid, but once it became apparent that it would become a worldwide pandemic, markets reacted violently in late February and most of March. […]
Investment Math Doesn’t Add Up
The S&P 500 reached an all-time high on February 19. Since that time, we have seen one of the fastest declines in value followed by a rapid recovery. The S&P 500 (on a daily closing basis) was down 33.9% from February 19 to the low on March 23. Then, from March 23 to April 30, […]
This Is Not Your Grandfather’s Retirement
Planning for retirement is usually one of the primary goals in a financial plan. However, the concept of retirement is changing. Years ago, retirement was a clear concept. You worked for a company until you were 65 (or thereabouts), and then you never worked another day. If you lived on the East Coast, you moved […]
What is Hiding in Your Portfolio?
Many investors have a dark, ugly secret – they don’t have an investment plan for their portfolio. Their portfolios are often a semi-random collection of stocks, ETFs, and mutual funds purchased over a long period of time. While markets are going up, as they have for much of the last 10 years, these randomly selected securities […]
All or Nothing
Many times, when I talk to investors, I’m confronted with the “All or Nothing” syndrome. It’s a black and white approach to decision making. I can do choice A, or I can do choice B. There is often no thought that the investor can do a combination of A and B, and that may be […]