Investments

In general, the longer you stay invested, the greater your chance of making money. To help you maintain a long-term investment approach, it’s imperative to develop an investment thesis. Drawing from my experience in investing since 1995, it’s sometimes easy to get shaken out of a particular investment. Or it’s easy for some people to […]

With stocks again near record highs, it’s a good idea to find ways to spend some of your stock market gains. Owning stocks provides no utility or inherent joy (unless you’re a lover of money itself), so we must sell on occasion to capture its benefits. When I first began investing in stocks in 1996,

After a bull market in 2023, let’s look at the 2024 Wall Street forecasts for the S&P 500. Overall, the 2024 S&P 500 targets range from 4,200 to 5,500, implying returns between -8.1% and +20.3% from 4,559. Obviously, anything can happen between now and the new year. In addition, plenty of economic data and corporate

Everybody knows that being a long-term investor is the way to go. The longer you can stay invested in the stock market and real estate markets, the greater your chances of making more money. There’s just one big problem with being long-term investors. We eventually all run out of time. And if we run out

Are you ready for another recession? With interest rates surging, oil prices rices, stock markets falling, the government stalling, and the housing market grinding to a halt, it seems inevitable another recession is just around the corner. Don’t wait until it’s too late to prepare. Surely, there will be a bunch more regional bank failures

My first venture capital investment was in 2007. I invested $70,000 in my college classmate’s gin company called Bulldog Gin, which ended up selling to Campari in 2017. Looking back, investing $70,000 in a single private company at age 30 was irresponsible! I knew nothing about the spirits market. All I knew was the founder,

Investors and particularly homebuyers are wondering when will the Fed finally start cutting rates? After 11 rate hikes so far since 2022, investors and homebuyers are starting to feel the strain of higher borrowing costs. The longer the Fed Funds rate stays high, the more negative impact it will have on the economy. Ideally, the

If you’re thinking about holding individual municipal bonds as a safe and liquid source of funds, think twice. Owning highly-rated municipal bonds is low risk. However, selling individual municipal bonds can be incredibly expensive and cumbersome. Unlike stocks, which now have $0 trading fees and ample liquidity, municipal bonds have a much less liquid market.

With interest rates rising across Treasury bonds, municipal bonds, and corporate bonds, there comes a point where owning bonds becomes more attractive than owning stocks. The objective of this article is to figure out an appropriate stock allocation by bond yield for a better risk-appropriate return. With the 10-year Treasury bond yield rising to as

Virtue signaling is the public expression of opinions or sentiments intended to demonstrate one’s good character, social conscience, or the moral correctness of one’s position on a particular issue. I don’t mind virtue signaling if the person also lives by their beliefs. It is natural to want to demonstrate to the world one’s beliefs, especially about a cause one truly believes

High interest rates could be the best thing for investors, personal finance enthusiasts, retirees, savers, and those seeking financial independence. You know, most of us. Even though it was uncomfortable to lose money when the Fed first started hiking rates in 2022, the Fed may have ultimately did us a favor by hiking 11 times

Everybody should have some investments in stocks. Although stocks provide zero utility, some stocks provide dividend income and all stocks have the potential for capital appreciation. Since 1926 the S&P 500 has returned about 10% on average a year. Further, at some point in your life you should sell some stocks to buy what you

Have you ever wondered why wealthy people are more willing to invest in hedge funds, venture capital, venture debt, private equity, and specialty funds? These are all actively-run funds that mostly have a history of underperforming the S&P 500. Yet, billions of dollars still pour in each year. Some of these active funds are also

We’ve gone through exercises on how I’d invest $100,000 and $250,000. Now let’s go through an exercise on how I’d invest a million dollars today. Investing a million dollars is slightly different from investing $100,000 and $250,000. You can more easily afford to lose $100,000 – $250,000. But if you lose $1,000,000, you might enter

During the bull market, I shared my belief the need for liquidity is overrated. Now that we’re in a bear market, I thought I’d revisit my thesis to see if it still stands. So far, I think it does. You’ve heard the recommendations of always having an emergency fund equal to 6-12 months of living

Recently, I temporarily went broke because I improperly managed my private investment capital calls. Because this happened, I thought I’d discuss some straightforward solutions to ensure you always have liquidity. If you are a new private fund investor or plan to invest in more private funds to diversify your investments, please learn from my errors.