Earlier this month, I set out to cross off a few items on my 2021 money agenda. As part of that (somewhat boring) exercise, I had to transfer roughly £150k from my wife’s workplace pension into Hargreaves Lansdown. Alongside Vanguard, Hargreaves is one of […]
On August 5th, 2011, representatives of the S&P rating agency announced their decision to downgrade their credit rating of the US Federal Government. To be fair, the S&P had clearly flagged their thinking earlier on, announcing a negative outlook back in April of the […]
In what is becoming a recurring theme, a long-time reader (let’s call him Bob) sent me a link to an article about passive investing the other day – and asked for my views. The article itself was unremarkable, a thinly veiled shill for an […]
Back in February, when a very prescient colleague of mine was busy liquidating his equity portfolio, a good friend of mine was going in the opposite direction. He and I had discussed investing in the past – and he had fully signed on to […]
Want to learn a guaranteed way to never, ever lose money in the stock market? Then today’s post is for you. Those who have read about the magic money machine will remember this graph: It’s a good representation of the random walk the stock […]
Back in late February (which now feels like a lifetime ago), a colleague and I were chatting about the stock market. The S&P had just gone down through the 3,000 mark. The said colleague, who happens to be a very thoughtful person, mentioned that […]
If one were to distill the most contentious question in stock market investing, it would boil down to this: “What is a reasonable expectation for stock market returns going forward?” Your take on the question above impacts a multitude of things. First and foremost, […]
To say that 2020 has been an eventful year would be an understatement. A once-in-a-century worldwide pandemic led to unprecedented levels of government and central bank intervention. In turn, the combination of a macro shock with the fiscal and monetary response has led to […]
Not too long ago, one of my readers posed an interesting question in the comments section of this blog. Essentially, it boiled down to this: I am using the stock market for long-term wealth building and my goal would be to FIRE, hopefully, within […]
One of my best friends happens to be a wildly successful real estate investor. Picking up the baton of a family business, he built up a neat little empire of apartment buildings and commercial properties – all by the age of 40. He also […]
“Objects in the rear-view mirror may appear closer than they are”. Right now, the opposite is true. It feels like a lifetime ago – but it has only been 11 weeks since we were trying to find a way forward in the midst of […]
The stock market is a complex beast. This is not entirely surprising. In a way, it might even be expected. After all, it’s a mechanism that allows retail investors like you and I take a tiny ownership stake in large multinational corporations like Microsoft […]
For anyone who is following the financial markets these days, Monday was an eye-opener. For the first time in history, the price of oil has gone into negative territory. At its nadir, a barrel of WTI (West Texas Intermediate, the US benchmark for oil) […]
I was scrolling through my Twitter feed the other day when I stumbled a tweet extolling the virtues of dividend investing – and the investing superpowers of dividend investors themselves. I won’t quote it verbatim, but it had all the requisite components, such as: […]
The stock market expansion that followed the financial crisis became known as the most hated bull market ever. Despite the tremendous growth and wealth creation, the share of retail investors in the stock market has actually declined from ~65% before the financial crisis to […]
Even in normal times, a big chunk of my days is spent in conversations with what is sometimes known as “smart money”. On the asset management side, this includes active money managers like Fidelity, Legal & General, Invesco, and many other household names. They […]
As the markets cratered over the past few weeks, the one message I’ve been giving to anyone who would listen is: DO NOT SELL. I certainly haven’t sold any of my shares. Why would I? If I was happy to buy something at a […]
As recently as two weeks ago, the prevailing macro view was that while the impact of Covid will be severe, the recovery will be V-shaped. That is, a sharp decline would be followed by an equally strong rebound in economic activity and asset prices. […]
It’s official. We’ve gone from what seemed like a nasty, yet temporary wobble in the markets to a full-blown crisis. The true scale of the damage to the world economy is unknown so far, but it’s clear the situation is more complex than it […]
As I write this post, my stock app is flashing green all around. S&P is up almost 4.6%, which apparently is its 11th best showing ever. Stocks, mutual funds and ETFs are up across the board. The only exception is the VIX. Down about […]
At some point, all stock market investors are faced with a 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 […]
Not too long ago, I published the “Silly Things Active Stock Market Investors Say” post. In it, I recounted some of the most popular excuses explanations people make when they try to justify an active investment strategy. As expected, few of the popular excuses […]
If you read my 2019 recap post, you will have seen the chart below: It ain’t pretty out there! On the x-axis, it plots “Armageddon” stock market predictions made by famous economists, investors and media personalities over the past ten years. The word “Armageddon” […]
You don’t need to read this blog for very long in order to figure out that when it comes to investing, I am a big fan of putting money into low-cost, passive index trackers. As an M&A (mergers and acquisitions) investment banker with access […]
On your journey to financial independence, it is hard to find a better ally than the stock market. Universally acknowledged as one of the best ways to build wealth over long periods of time, stock market investing has never been more accessible to retail […]
There is a reason why investing in the stock market is one of the best ways to generate wealth over long periods of time. After all, there hasn’t been a single 15-year period since 1926 in which investing in the S&P 500 would have […]
A couple of weeks ago, I was having drinks with a friend from the finance industry. The conversation turned to passive investing and we spent a bit of time discussing one particular index fund in my portfolio. The following morning, he texted me with […]
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