We’ve written a lot about geographic diversification. With the U.S. having performed so well over the past decade and international markets lagging by quite a bit, many investors are currently heavily concentrated in the U.S. stock market. Here’s a nice write-up from Morningstar debunking some of the more popular misconceptions about investing abroad and re-enforcing …

Recessions do…. Don’t let your investment portfolio get caught up in the political upheaval in Washington. Chart of historical events below courtesy of Mark Chaikin at Chaikin Analytics.

We live in a world of complexity. Whether it be applying the U.S. tax code or understanding health insurance options or applying for college or developing an appropriate social security draw strategy or developing a credible financial plan or any number of other situations, we’re often required to make decisions on our own without complete …

Often times we believe we have a good idea of how something should happen either because of previous experience or because of a set of supposedly supporting facts or because somebody we trust told us something would happen a certain way. Inevitably, expected outcomes don’t materialize. Some of us may spend considerable time contemplating why …

The Risk When nearing retirement and contemplating withdrawal strategies, there are various factors to consider such as timing, amounts and tax implications. While I’m not going to address these particular factors today, I am going to discuss one of the critical risks that all retirees who are dependent upon their retirement accounts to fund their …

We’ve written ad nauseum about diversification in this blog. We’ve done so because it is a proven principle to successful investing. Furthermore, so many individual investors are not properly diversified based on their specific life situation and goals. Most aren’t properly educated but some actually think they can do better. While there are certainly select …

“Plenty to worry about but not much for investors to do” was the headline from a recap Byron Wien, famed Blackstone market strategist, penned after his annual gathering for “serious investors”. I’m not going to go into the specifics from his gathering. You can read about it here if you’re interested. Apart from Mr. Wien being …

Market-based economies are driven by the laws of supply and demand which are driven by consumer preference and producer capacity. High consumer demand for scarce products will result in rapid and extreme price increases. The opposite is also true. Think of fads like beanie babies that came and went fairly quickly. One minute they were …

Gauging the health of the stock market can be tricky. There are so many variables that can be evaluated and spun in different ways to fit a narrative. Market internals are one of the primary ways in which the health of the stock market can be evaluated. They’re objective in nature and less prone to …