Stock Market Archives - Banker on FIRE

The stock market is a complex beast.

The good news is that you don’t need to understand it to take advantage of it. […]

The topic of future stock market returns has got to be one of the most popular stones of contention in the personal finance community.

Everyone agrees that historically, those returns looked pretty damn good.

But what does the future hold? […]

There’s nothing quite like the sweet promise of a predictable, steady, (and growing) dividend payment.

But is there more to dividend investing than meets the eye?

Sadly, yes. […]

We closed on Thursday morning.

The ad went up a few hours later, just ahead of what was shaping up to be a sunny, enjoyable weekend.

In other words […]

Ask anyone who is worth their investing salt and they will be unequivocal about it:

The stock market is the most amazing money machine that has ever been invented.

But is that still true in today’s frenzied environment? […]

At some point, all stock market investors face the following question:

What is the right portfolio allocation between US and international equities?

As the data below shows, at the turn of the 20th century, the US stock market represented ~15% of the world’s total. […]

The biggest refrain you hear from people who think you can beat the stock market goes as follows:

“By definition, 50% of investors do better than the market and the other 50% do worse. Surely it cannot be so hard to be in the first group.” […]

The period between 1999 and 2009 will likely go down as the “decade of pain” for US large-cap investors.

The S&P 500 followed the roaring 90s with a nasty, -2% annualized return over the subsequent ten years.

And yes, that does include reinvestment of dividends. […]