Modelling your future investment returns is most clearly done by writing down a list of scenarios, estimating how much money your investment would make or lose in each scenario, and then assigning probabilities to those scenarios. Like an insurance company writing a policy, or a casino choosing to offer a new game, we make the […]
One bittersweet effect of the coronavirus outbreak is a surge of interest in writing or updating wills. I say “bittersweet”, since any rush to write and execute your will sounds very morbid, but if anything motivates the large number of people without a will or with an outdated will to write one, it’s better to […]
The older I get, the more value I find in seeing every day events from a very long term historical perspective. Especially when it comes to comparing market crashes, the rapid declines in stock prices in March 2020 were not quite “unprecedented”, and of course stockholders’ eventual outcomes depend on how well economies and corporate […]
The Coronavirus now known as Covid-19 has dominated the news here in Asia for more than a month so far, and only this week seems to be taken more seriously by US and European financial markets. One site I have found myself checking frequently for updates on cases and contagion is this map by Johns […]
I usually pay no attention to news about the British royal family, even the marriage of American actress Meghan Markle into it, but this story of Prince Harry and the Duchess of Sussex moving assets to Delaware did catch my eye. As a born US citizen, Meghan remains subject to US taxes on her worldwide […]
Today’s chart is thank’s to this tweet by Mohamed El-Erian. Government bonds bore most people, in part because they promise low fixed rates of return, barely above bank deposit rates, and often lock in their rates for long periods of time over which inflation could eat away the value of the principal returned at the […]
It seems to have been a mistake by its index provider FTSE, but this tweet by Eric Balchunas of Bloomberg shows five stocks Vanguard‘s ESG fund that many professionals would not likely rank high on ESG measures. While I believe ESG and ethical factors in investing are far more subjective than quantitative factors like value […]
One of my main missions as a fee-only investment advisor is to shine light on how every day professionals can best save and invest for retirement, and know exactly what they’re paying for such services and what they get from those services. I was glad to see this latest Barron’s article highlighting US teachers’ 403(b) […]
Your bank is probably the worst place for you to keep any more money than you plan to spend in the next 1-3 months. For years, I have downgraded from HSBC premier and Standard Chartered priority banking to the most basic service levels of each, so that I only keep about 1 month’s expenses in […]
When coming up with lists of stocks to avoid investing in, starting with companies with the most excessive executive compensation can often be a good place to start. While I do believe top-talented executives should be paid well for making us shareholders wealthier, I feel I get a better sense each year of which multi-million […]