The Three-Legged Stool

Post-World War II retirement planning was easy. We had pensions. There was income from Social Security. And we had our own savings. Those three things made up for a sturdy three-legged stool that took us though a worry-free retirement. Pensions have all but gone the way of the dodo bird. The Social Security situation isContinue reading “The Three-Legged Stool”

The Magnificent Seven

Bank of America strategist Michael Hartnett coined the term “The Magnificent Seven” or Mag 7 for a group of stocks that have come to dominate the stock market lately1. These stocks are Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Nvidia, Tesla and Meta. Markets are long-term efficient but sometimes they can get short-term nutty. I feel some ofContinue reading “The Magnificent Seven”

The More Complex Your Investments, The More Likely They’ll Blow Up

Robert Stock earned a bachelor’s degree in physics from Princeton university and a doctorate from Carnegie Mellon. He spent nine years working as a researcher in the Directed Energy Group at MIT’s Lincoln lab where he performed simulations of high-energy laser systems for missile defense. He later switched careers to money management and ran theContinue reading “The More Complex Your Investments, The More Likely They’ll Blow Up”

Real Investing

Alice Schroeder in her book, The Snowball describes how Warren Buffett acquired shares in the Coca-Cola company. Buffett had been wanting to buy Coca-Cola shares for quite some time but couldn’t because they never got cheap enough for his taste. The 1987 stock market crash gave him that chance. The world, though, knew who Buffett was so ifContinue reading “Real Investing”

The Right Process & A Good-Enough Plan

Albert Einstein is a universal symbol of genius. He discovered the theory of relativity, won a Nobel Prize in physics, and made scientific advances in gravity, cosmology, radiation, theoretical physics, statistical mechanics, and quantum theory. So wouldn’t an investor be blessed to have the smarts like his? Einstein lost his savings – including his Nobel Prize moneyContinue reading “The Right Process & A Good-Enough Plan”