Investments

If you never spend your investment gains, what exactly are you investing for? This question hit me hard after a year of nonstop financial management, market volatility, and real estate turnover in 2025. I had done everything “right” from an investing perspective, yet I felt deprived. So I made a new financial rule for myself: […]

Back in 2012, when I left my finance job, I worried I had made a huge mistake. The money was good. The job provided decent status. But I was exhausted by the grind. So I did what any rational person would do when faced with a single, finite life: I chose a better lifestyle. It

After Fundrise announced it plans to list the Innovation Fund on the NYSE, I decided to do some more research on how different funds actually trade and why float matters more than most investors realize. My main goal was to get a better idea of how the fund may trade compared to its Net Asset

As a FIRE parents raising two children in San Francisco, we rely heavily on our investments to remain free. If we significantly misjudge returns, we increase the probability of having to go back to work. Going back to work is not the end of the world. Ideally, however, we would like to avoid it until

I’ve been aggressively buying the dip since March 2020, when I wrote How To Predict A Stock Market Bottom Like Nostradamus. My daughter was born four months earlier, and something inside me clicked, pushing me to invest aggressively for her future in an increasingly difficult world. Since then, I’ve continued to buy virtually every meaningful dip

Beyond expensive valuations, with the S&P 500 trading at roughly 22 times estimated forward earnings, another concern for the stock market is quietly flashing red: U.S. households now have more net worth in stocks than in real estate. On the surface, this might not sound alarming. After all, the stock market has been ripping higher

I’m in a cash crunch, and it doesn’t feel good. After buying my house in 2023 and living paycheck to paycheck for six months, I promised myself I would never return to this state. Yet here I am. Part of it is just bad luck, but part of it comes down to poor planning on

During my free financial review of my rollover IRA, I was feeling pretty good about how far it had come. Back when I retired from finance in April 2012, I had about $300,000 in my 401(k). After leaving, I rolled it into an IRA and invested in index ETFs and individual stocks. Since then, it

It’s a raging bull market, and I’ll confess, I’m a little annoyed I don’t have a large paycheck anymore to take advantage of more investment opportunities. Every day, I see people with steady W-2 income are funneling thousands into stocks, real estate, and private deals. Meanwhile, I’m sitting here, asset rich but cash flow constrained.

1999 is back, and I’ve missed it. Ever since then, I’ve been chasing that next 50-bagger, the kind of life-changing winner that helped me come up with the down payment for my first property. But he’s been elusive. I still remember sitting on the international trading floor at Goldman Sachs at 1 New York Plaza,

It’s been several months since we returned from Hawaii, and surprisingly, my FOMO about the AI tech boom has faded. Sure, I still don’t have a job paying me gobs of money as AI CapEx surges higher, but that’s OK. Instead, I’ve allocated enough money to AI investments to where I no longer feel the

If you want to grow your wealth faster than the average person, I suggest trying to think in two timelines that move together in unison. The first timeline is analyzing what’s going on right now. The second timeline is analyzing what could happen in the future, with a consistent spread. It’s like having a dual

Only when the stock market goes down do people start to wonder whether they have too much exposure to stocks (equities). Questions arise: Should I cut back? Should I buy the dip? What’s the appropriate allocation to stocks right now? While the answer depends on many variables—your risk tolerance, age, net worth, current asset allocation, and

Creating an investment game plan is a crucial part of building lasting wealth. Without one, you’re likely to accumulate far less over your lifetime. Now that the S&P 500 briefly corrected by 20% in 2025, we’ve officially entered another bear market. Historically, bear markets have lasted about two years on average, but this one is

Stagflation is a rare and challenging economic condition where slow or stagnant growth, high unemployment, and persistent inflation occur simultaneously. Typically, inflation rises when an economy is expanding and demand is strong, while recessions tend to bring lower inflation due to weaker demand. Stagflation defies this pattern, making it particularly difficult to address with traditional

One adjustment I’m making to my net worth asset allocation is reducing exposure to closed-end venture capital funds while increasing allocation to open-ended venture capital funds. Closed-end venture capital funds follow a traditional model: you commit capital, fund capital calls, and rely on the general partners to make great investment choices. I invest up to

China’s DeepSeek has shaken up the AI world with the release of an open-source AI model that reportedly outperformed OpenAI’s in several benchmarks. Even more startling is the company’s claim that its AI technology was developed for only $5.6 million. This figure has raised eyebrows, especially as companies like OpenAI and Anthropic have spent hundreds

2025 has gotten off to a rough start with devastating fires and corrections in stocks, bonds, and other risk assets. So, I thought it’d be a good idea to shift focus to some positives—before they fade as well. Take a moment to calculate your excess investment returns to remind yourself of the good times. When

The 2025 Wall Street S&P 500 forecasts are rolling in, and so far, the outlook is all bullish. I haven’t found a single bearish forecast, which is somewhat worrisome. Most firms project the S&P 500 will close 2025 around 6,500—a solid 8.3% gain from the current ~6,000 level. If 2024 ends as expected, with the