Weekend reading: Boom! Shake the room
What caught my eye this week. Josh Brown is concerned. The financial advisor and TV pundit behind The Reformed Broker blog sees a new kind of fear and greed out there: The type of fear that now drives most market activity (because it drives most market participants) is something different than the fear we’ve been […]
Why making monthly payments on a repayment mortgage is a form of saving
People get muddled when they think about their own home in financial terms. This extends to a repayment mortgage used to buy a property. Mental accounting – also known as ‘bucketing’ – is what causes this discombobulation. Fact is we tend to think about the value of money differently, depending on where it comes from […]
How to improve the 60/40 portfolio
Part one of this two-part series explored why the future expected returns of the 60/40 portfolio are unlikely to match the last ten years. In a nutshell, negative real bond yields plus richly valued US equity markets imply weak capital growth ahead. Past experience shows expected returns predictions are more reliable than some chancer with […]
Weekend reading: When did you last change your mind?
What caught my eye this week. A key trait as an investor is the ability to change your mind. That’s because we’re all wrong about stuff, all the time. I don’t mean you that should flip stocks on a whim, or pick-and-mix this season’s asset allocation like you’re choosing a t-shirt for the beach. Staying […]
Investing for beginners: Time value of money
The time value of money is one of the most important concepts to grasp in investing. Happily, it’s a pretty instinctive one.1 The time value of money reflects how you’d rather get a certain sum of money today than exactly the same amount of money in the future. Money in the hand now is worth […]
How unmarried couples can protect their finances
A reader asks what unmarried couples should do to protect themselves when they’ve accumulated significant assets: What if you’re not married but [are] in a relationship? As far as I can see there are tax issues if you die but want to leave your money to your other half. Is there anything that can be […]
Weekend reading: The nothingness of money
What caught my eye this week. I think we can all agree that money is not the most important thing in this life. Equally, I suspect most of us believe money is one of the most important things in our lives. Simply because of how it enables us to do the other things. I’ve been […]
How to complain about a financial provider to the Ombudsman
This article on the Financial Ombudsman is by The Treasurer from Team Monevator. I was a big fan of the BBC’s Rogue Traders. The host Matt Allwright would confront dodgy businessmen in action. He’d chase them down a street if they did a runner from the cameras. It made for a great show, though it’s […]
FIRE update: six months in
I have just reread my three-month ‘How’s FIRE1 going, then?’ update. I seemed happy when I wrote it. I’m happy now! So far this thing has not grown old. I was outed recently at a friend’s birthday. I was among peers I hadn’t seen for ages, but have known for years. Word had gone round: […]
Weekend reading: Move on up
What caught my eye this week. The markets are throwing in the towel on the notion of ‘transitory’ inflation, or at least transitory US inflation. The US consumer price index just jumped 6.2% – the most since 1990 – and alternative measures that strip out everything that Americans actually want to buy show rising prices, […]