The Curious Engineer

A Wealth of Common Sense

2013–2016

929 posts

2017–2021 →

2016 204

December 2016

  1. Ponzi Schemes & Ego
  2. The 2016 Financial Market Awards
  3. The Hierarchy of Investment Difficulty
  4. Investing When It Doesn’t Make Any Sense
  5. How Americans Spend Their Money
  6. Overcoming a Late Start to Saving for Retirement
  7. The Best Books I Read in 2016
  8. 20 Rules of Personal Finance
  9. Expected Risk
  10. How the 1973-74 Bear Market Changed How People Judge Investment Performance
  11. The Personal Success Equation
  12. Mindless Eating & Finance
  13. Diversification Is No Fun
  14. Know Your Audience
  15. Everyone is in Sales

November 2016

  1. The Agony of Investing in Small Cap Stocks
  2. Something I’m Worried About
  3. The Hidden Variable of Investment Performance
  4. Taxes & Timing
  5. Don’t Try to Get Rich Twice
  6. How Bad Could Bond Market Losses Get?
  7. The Limitations of Algorithms
  8. My Evidence-Based Observations
  9. The Bright Side of Rising Interest Rates
  10. You Are Not Stanley Druckenmiller
  11. Could a Trump Presidency Lead to a Stock Market Bubble?
  12. Is a Starter Home One of the Worst Purchases You Can Make?
  13. How Investors Develop Bad Habits
  14. Some Things That Haven’t Been Around Very Long
  15. Don’t Be Afraid of All-Time Highs in the Stock Market

October 2016

  1. The Frog-in-a-Pot Theory of Investing
  2. Celebrities & Loss Aversion
  3. Faulty Wall Street Assumptions
  4. Technology & Scale in Asset Management
  5. A Textbook Performance Chase
  6. The Art of Doing Nothing
  7. Harvard vs. Yale: The Battle of the Endowments
  8. 10 Purchases That Are Worth the Money
  9. When Market Signals Look Too Good to be True
  10. Investment Management vs. Financial Advice
  11. The Jeff Bezos Regret Minimization Framework
  12. The Consequences of Risk Taking
  13. Knowing When to Break Your Own Rules
  14. How Things Have Changed on Wall Street in the Last 50 Years
  15. Advisors Are Mulling a Career Change Because of Fiduciary Guidelines
  16. Disconfirmations, Framing & Satisficing

September 2016

  1. Friday Reader Mailbox
  2. How to Improve the Alternative Asset Management Industry
  3. How Interest Rates Affect Stock Market Returns
  4. The Fight to Keep It Simple
  5. The Benefits of Writing
  6. Do Institutional Consultants Add Value Picking Money Managers?
  7. Is the Value Premium Disappearing?
  8. The Greatest Bubble of All-Time?
  9. Reflections on Year One in the RIA World
  10. The John Bogle Expected Return Formula
  11. An Allocation Only a Mother Could Love
  12. Cialdini’s 6 Principles of Influence & Persuasion
  13. Updating Wall Street Cliches
  14. Survivorship Bias Explained
  15. Chuck Klosterman: A Modern Day Philosopher
  16. A Pressure Release Valve For Your Portfolio

August 2016

  1. 10 Money Revelations in My 30s
  2. How to Lie With Fed Statistics
  3. Paul Tudor Jones & the Nature of the Beast
  4. Trading Big Mistakes for Little Mistakes
  5. How Volatility Can Work in Your Favor
  6. Friday Mailbox
  7. How to Survive a Melt-Up
  8. What It Takes to Retire Early
  9. Do Stocks Diversify Bonds?
  10. Being Process-Oriented Means…
  11. How Progress Occurs
  12. The Blog Post That Led to a Conference
  13. Disrupting Your Own Happiness
  14. The Worst ETFs You Can Own
  15. Good CEO Hunting
  16. Are We At Risk of an Inverted Yield Curve?

July 2016

  1. A Deep Dive on Contingency Plans
  2. 1929 vs. 2000
  3. Spot the Red Flags
  4. What’s the Right Asset Allocation For Young Investors?
  5. The Strategy Tax
  6. Good Question, Great Question
  7. We’ve Just Witnessed One of the Least Volatile Economic Recoveries on Record
  8. Peter Lynch’s Track Record Revisited
  9. Misconceptions About Diversification
  10. Institutional Investors are Vacationing at Lake Wobegon
  11. Stock Market Returns Are Lumpy
  12. Benjamin Graham on Financial Advisors
  13. Bond Yields: The Anti-Risk Bubble?
  14. Double Secret Probation
  15. The Downside of Past Performance
  16. 3 Ways to Make Money in the Markets

June 2016

  1. You Have to Invest
  2. If Demographics Are Destiny…
  3. Taking Stock of European Equities
  4. Get Ready For The Bull Market in Opinions
  5. Things You Can’t Care About When Managing OPM
  6. Will Berkshire Hathaway Eventually Get Broken Up By Activists?
  7. Unquantifiable Risk
  8. No One Knows What Will Happen
  9. Your Biggest Advantage is the Greed of Your Competitors
  10. 10 Things I Believe About Investing
  11. Strong Jobs Market, Weak Stock Market
  12. Re-Visiting the 1998 Bear Market
  13. Behavior of the Experts
  14. While You Were Worrying…
  15. Has There Ever Been a Better Time to be a Homebuyer?
  16. The Upside of Academic Finance
  17. Bill Gross & The 40 Year Black Swan
  18. Pursuing the Right Goals

May 2016

  1. Animal Spirits in the Real Estate Market
  2. How The Finance Industry Tricks You
  3. How Return Assumptions Affect Investor Behavior
  4. Returns on Your Social Security
  5. Lessons From Losing Big
  6. Hardcore FinTech
  7. The S&P 500 is the World’s Largest Momentum Strategy
  8. How Should Alternative Investments Be Benchmarked?
  9. Deconstructing 30 Year Stock Market Returns
  10. Your True Risk
  11. Silicon Valley’s Dumb Money
  12. Why Investors Own More Stocks Now
  13. The Temptation to Time
  14. The Future of the Hedge Fund Industry
  15. Death By a Thousand Cuts
  16. Are Millennials Doomed in a Lower Return Environment?

April 2016

  1. Building Failure Into Your Process
  2. The New Bond Market Reality
  3. When Mediocrity Trumps Brilliance
  4. 180 Years of Market Drawdowns
  5. Personal Finance is Personal
  6. Why Money Manager Due Diligence is so Difficult
  7. Mean Reversion From the Lost Decade
  8. How to be More Productive
  9. Alternative Sources of Alpha
  10. Ronaldo Playing Soccer in the Dark
  11. The Most Complicated Stocks
  12. Trading Costs & The New Market Averages
  13. The Dual Mandate of an Investment Advisor
  14. 10 Crazy Things People in Finance Believe
  15. Napoleon’s Corporal
  16. What Do Share Buybacks Really Tell Us About the Stock Market?
  17. How Institutional Investors Use ETFs
  18. Life Lessons From Famous Comedians
  19. How Much Do Profits Matter To Stock Market Returns?

March 2016

  1. Investors in Search of 7-Minute Abs
  2. Are European Stocks Cheap or is the U.S. Expensive?
  3. How To Pick The Right ETF
  4. The Cost of Not Paying Attention
  5. We’re in a Bunny Market
  6. How a Single Investment Can Make or Break Your Reputation
  7. Andy Grove on The Importance of an Outsider’s Perspective
  8. Smart Beta Crash Coming?
  9. Some Things I Don’t Understand
  10. Would It Help?
  11. The Stock Market’s Secret Weapon
  12. The Pitfalls of Benchmarking
  13. Mythbusters: Financial Blogger Edition
  14. Why Investors In Alternatives Perform So Poorly
  15. How To Be Wrong As An Investor
  16. Updating My Favorite Performance Chart
  17. Bottom Fishing & New Bull Markets
  18. Retail Venture Capitalists
  19. The Problem With Trying to Quantify Risk
  20. The Modern Day Philanthropist

February 2016

  1. Bogle vs. Goliath
  2. The Buffett Backlash
  3. What Hedge Funds Get Right
  4. Managing Risk vs. Managing Returns
  5. Is The Fed Running Out of Ammo?
  6. The Importance of Storytelling Ability
  7. A One Year Financial Plan
  8. How to Work From Anywhere
  9. Three Characteristics of a Successful Investment Firm
  10. How to Manage Risk When the Market Owes You Nothing
  11. Why Bear Markets Are So Painful
  12. Three Things That Don’t Matter During a Market Sell-Off
  13. When Global Stocks Go On Sale
  14. Bull Markets vs. Bear Markets
  15. The Greatest Bull Market of All-Time?
  16. The Difference Between Institutional & Individual Investors
  17. Why Bonds Are So Confusing
  18. When Diversification Works
  19. The Incredible Growing Dividend

January 2016

  1. Urgent vs. Important
  2. Short-Term Thinking With Long-Term Capital
  3. What’s Your Savings Replacement Rate?
  4. About That Oil & Stock Market Correlation
  5. The Process of Judging an Investment Process
  6. The Fear Principles
  7. Asset Allocation 2.0 (and 3.0, 4.0, etc.)
  8. Three Things That Matter During a Market Sell-Off
  9. Stock Market Sell-Offs Without a Recession
  10. “We have no idea”
  11. The Bedrock of Portfolio Management
  12. Macro is Hard
  13. Why The Smart Money Chases Performance
  14. When Investors Call the Shots for Portfolio Managers
  15. 10 Bear Market Truths
  16. The Impact of the Fiduciary Standard on the Finance Industry
  17. The Most Important Retirement Fund Right Now
  18. Calculated Risks From the Coach Who Never Punts

2015 268

December 2015

  1. A Painful Year for Contrarian Trades
  2. The 2015 Financial Market Awards
  3. Pros & Cons of a Sideways Market
  4. Two Business Lessons From Patagonia’s Yvon Chouinard
  5. The Best Books I Read in 2015
  6. Why Long/Short Funds Have Performed So Poorly?
  7. The Passive Investing Revolution That’s Not So Passive
  8. Do I Have a Financial Advisor?
  9. A Short History of Interest Rates
  10. Remember When
  11. Avoiding Forced Irrationality
  12. Some Perspective on Junk Bonds
  13. It’s OK to be Confused
  14. Wall Street’s Biggest Lies
  15. Organizational Alpha
  16. The S&P 500 Hot Hand Fallacy
  17. What Happens When There Are Fewer Suckers at the Poker Table?
  18. Millennials in the C-Suite
  19. Uncle Sam Loves Active Mutual Funds
  20. The Retirement (Expectations) Crisis

November 2015

  1. What If Factor Risk Premiums Go Away?
  2. Q&A With Charles Kirk, Part II
  3. Q&A With Charles Kirk
  4. Consulting & The Smart Money Herd Mentality
  5. 10 Rules For Attending a Conference
  6. The Lingering Effects of the Financial Crisis
  7. Faulty Assumptions
  8. Buy Side vs. Sell Side
  9. Regret Minimization
  10. What Interest Rates Can Teach Us About Behavioral Biases
  11. Are The Private Markets Are Getting Too Crowded?
  12. Underestimating the Power of Compound Interest
  13. Playing the Probabilities
  14. How Perception Affects Your Investing Reality
  15. 10 Questions to Help Define Your Investment Philosophy
  16. Howard Marks & Warren Buffett on Paycheck Movie Sequels
  17. Does a Change in Expectations Require a Change in Strategy?
  18. The Biggest Difference Between the Real World & Academia

October 2015

  1. How to be a Good Client
  2. Are Private Equity Returns Overstated?
  3. Surviving the Next Downturn
  4. The Sounds-Good-In-Theory-Portfolio
  5. Satisfying Your Activity Addiction
  6. Goals-Based Investing
  7. Move to the Beach and Live Off the Interest?
  8. The Difference Between a Portfolio Manager & Portfolio Management
  9. Misconceptions About Individual Bonds vs. Bond Funds
  10. One Year Returns Don’t Tell You Anything
  11. The Importance of Continuity in Portfolio Management
  12. When Evidence Fails
  13. What They Don’t Teach You in Business School
  14. Predictions No One Ever Makes
  15. Why People Invest in Hedge Funds
  16. Preventing the Next Crash?
  17. Trying Not to Get Lost in Translation
  18. Apathy As a Strategy
  19. 60/40 Return Expectations
  20. My Thoughts on Hedge Funds
  21. How Often Does Cash Reign as King?

September 2015

  1. Raising Arizona
  2. Selling is the Easy Part
  3. The Sweet Spot in Bonds
  4. 10 Things I Love About Twitter
  5. Complexity as a Default
  6. Understanding Bond Market Duration & Volatility
  7. My Next Step
  8. Diversification of Opportunity
  9. Index Funds Are Nothing Special
  10. The Experience Fallacy
  11. Not All Interest Rates Are Created Equal
  12. Alpha Architect on Momentum & Trend Following Rules
  13. Something Most Investors Simply Cannot Accept
  14. Money Advice For Young People: Managing Money When There is None
  15. Avoiding the Certainty Trap
  16. Definitions for Financial Consumers
  17. 6 Reasons For David Swensen’s Success at Yale
  18. In Defense of Risk Parity (Or Any Long-Term Strategy)
  19. Hurricane Amnesia
  20. Money Management Can be a Nutty Business
  21. The Emerging Markets Rout Continues
  22. How Much Diversification is Necessary?

August 2015

  1. Some Thoughts on the Wild Week that Was
  2. The ETF Flash Crash
  3. When Correlations Go to One
  4. Things People Say During a Market Correction
  5. Crash Rules Everything Around Me
  6. 10 Underrated Charlie Munger Quotes
  7. 3 Simple Pieces of Advice I’ve Received About Investing
  8. Investing a Lump Sum at All-Time Highs
  9. Is Wall Street’s Ex Machina Moment Coming?
  10. Did We Just Witness the Best Risk-Adjusted Returns Ever?
  11. A False Sense of Security
  12. 10 Questions I’m Thinking About
  13. Unexpected Sources of Protection Against Inflation
  14. The Need for More Effective Communication in the Investment Business
  15. How Inflation Affects Market Returns
  16. Predicting the Next Big One
  17. Getting What You Pay For (or Not)
  18. Avoiding Process Drift
  19. Should Social Security Be Considered a Bond?
  20. Price Insensitive Buyers at Prior Market Peaks
  21. Mohnish Pabrai on How to be a Mentor

July 2015

  1. The Benefits of Curiosity
  2. 20 People You Don’t Want to Invest With
  3. How to Teach Your Children About Money
  4. The Importance of Intellectual Honesty in the Markets
  5. Seeing Both Sides of the Market Debate
  6. The Problem With Bond Indexing
  7. How Badly Has The Fed Been Punishing Savers?
  8. A History of Gold Returns
  9. What’s The Biggest Risk Right Now?
  10. Luck vs. Skill in Active Management
  11. The Chase For Yield Continues
  12. Why Buy & Hold Works
  13. Does CalPERS Need a Simpler Approach?
  14. World Class Comedy or Investing: Are They Teachable?
  15. How to Retire Early
  16. Is International Diversification Worth The Risk?
  17. Who Would Benefit From a Stock Market Correction?
  18. My Thoughts on Gary Antonacci’s Dual Momentum
  19. Why Momentum Investing Works
  20. Uncharted Territory in the Fed Funds Rate Cycle
  21. Finance Twitter’s Reaction to This Week’s Jobs Report
  22. 15 Problems With Real World Portfolios
  23. Reader Q&A on My New Book
  24. What if Risk-Free Returns Slowly Go Away?

June 2015

  1. Letting Go of the Why
  2. Delusions of Future Outperformance
  3. Four Business Ideas From Peter Thiel
  4. Stop Blaming Mom & Pop For Everything Bad That Happens in the Markets
  5. When Risk and Returns Really Start to Matter
  6. What’s Your Philosophy?
  7. 10 Things I Learned Writing a Book
  8. The CFA vs MBA Decision
  9. When Ordinary Beats Extraordinary
  10. The Four Signs of a Pending Bear Market
  11. Will Retiring Baby Boomers Ruin Future Market Returns?
  12. CAPE Fear of Lower Returns
  13. The Worst Part About Big Financial Decisions
  14. The Struggle to Define Risk
  15. Four Questions
  16. Understanding Business Risk
  17. Fear & Loathing in the Financial Media
  18. The Bull Market That Didn’t End in a Crash
  19. How Innovation is Affecting Market Valuations
  20. The Most Interesting Asset Class Over the Next Decade
  21. Avoiding The Status Quo to Fire Your Advisor
  22. Chris Sacca on The Power of Incentives
  23. What If Everything Is Overvalued?

May 2015

  1. The Role of Luck in Your Portfolio
  2. How to Tell If You’re Getting Bad Financial Advice
  3. The Golden Age of Asset Allocation
  4. Yeah But…
  5. To Win You Have to be Willing to Lose
  6. What Kind of Investment Advice Would Don Draper Have Received?
  7. How Do You Utilize 2nd Level Thinking?
  8. The Four Pillars of Retirement Savings
  9. Are Long-Term Bonds Worth the Risk?
  10. Is This the Top?
  11. The Opportunity in Active ETFs
  12. Finding the Limitations in Your Investment Process
  13. How Often Are Markets “Normal?”
  14. Liquidity Risk: Same as It Ever Was
  15. Should You Use Volatility to Make Asset Allocation Decisions?
  16. The Shrinkage Effect in the Stock Market
  17. How to Overcome Your Fear of Public Speaking
  18. Experience or Expertise?
  19. A History of Bond Market Corrections
  20. How Much International Diversification is Necessary?
  21. Conflicting Finance Narratives
  22. Thoughts On Giving Financial Advice
  23. Are There Too Many Buffett Disciples?
  24. So You Want to be a Top Caller?

April 2015

  1. Are Stock Market Returns Since The 1980s An Aberration?
  2. Occasional Bursts of Something
  3. Things People Say During a Bull Market
  4. What If There Is No Small Cap Premium?
  5. Take Care of Your Own First
  6. The Timeless Nature of the Herd Mentality
  7. Things People in the Finance Industry Don’t Want You to Know
  8. An Open Letter to Vice News About Their New Personal Finance Show For Millennials
  9. What Are Your Actual Returns?
  10. The Impact of the Tech Bubble on Future Returns
  11. Placing Constraints On Yourself
  12. Rebalancing With Required Minimum Distributions
  13. Can People Really Change Their Financial Behavior?
  14. Wall Street Is Not Going Down Without a Fight
  15. Three Misconceptions About Risk Management
  16. Lefty’s Placebo Effect
  17. Stock Market Losses With Low Interest Rates
  18. 9 Lessons From The Great Depression
  19. Doubling Down on Risk
  20. Stressing Out About Money
  21. Pros & Cons of a 30 Year Fixed Rate Mortgage
  22. Are Emerging Markets Still An Asset Class?
  23. What You Can’t Learn From Your Heroes
  24. A Historical Look at a 50/50 Portfolio
  25. Do Young Investors Need a Financial Advisor?
  26. What Would You Say…You Do Here?

March 2015

  1. A Closer Look at the U.S. Government’s Retirement Plan
  2. The Behavior Gap Financial Plan
  3. Buffett’s Performance by Decade
  4. Competing Ideologies
  5. Two Finance Phrases I Could Do Without
  6. Bonds Are Supposed to be Boring
  7. Investor Transcripts Released
  8. What Constitutes Long-Term in the Stock Market?
  9. Priorities
  10. What’s Right With Finance
  11. Market Returns During Ray Dalio’s 1937 Scenario
  12. Personal Finances > Portfolio Management
  13. Which Active Funds Outperform During Bear Markets?
  14. Stock Performance Before, During & After Recessions
  15. Time Horizons & Withdrawal Rates in Retirement
  16. Rooting For a Bear Market?
  17. The Psychology of Sitting in Cash
  18. Advice For a Young Robo-Investor on Asset Allocation
  19. What’s In a (Mutual Fund’s) Name?
  20. Why It’s So Hard to Change Your Mind About the Markets
  21. Behavioral Experts Behaving Badly
  22. An Alternative to the 60/40 Portfolio
  23. Investor Behavior Following Large Gains & Losses
  24. The Blueprint for a Bond Bear Market?
  25. My Biggest Investing Mistake
  26. The Process of Elimination

February 2015

  1. Retirement Planning for Millennials
  2. When Will The U.S. Have Its Next Recession?
  3. From Great to Good
  4. Long-Term Thinking as a Contrarian Approach
  5. The Most Impressive Behavior Gap in the Mutual Fund Industry
  6. Observations From a Decade in the Investment Business
  7. Why Should You Care What Anyone Else Does With Their Finances?
  8. Risk Management Always Matters
  9. How Our Memories Shape Market Cycles
  10. Which Investment Generalizations Should You Treat as Fact?
  11. The Problem With Intuitive Investing
  12. 10 Great Lines From ‘Where Are the Customers’ Yachts?’
  13. What Do Low Interest Rates Mean for Stock Market Returns?
  14. Move Along…Nothing to See Here
  15. One Way to Beat the Market
  16. What About the 1970s?
  17. Asset Allocation Intangibles
  18. Lessons for the Wealthy From Tim Duncan
  19. What Happens When the Umbrella Shop Gets Too Crowded?
  20. Is Financial Literacy a Lost Cause?
  21. Why Does Bill Gross Have a Financial Advisor?
  22. A Dozen Things I’ve Learned From Tren Griffin

January 2015

  1. The Real Risk to a 60/40 Portfolio
  2. Questions Most Investors Don’t Ask
  3. Would Keynes Have Been Fired as a Money Manager Today?
  4. The Robo-Advisor Challenge
  5. The Difference Between Good & Bad Markets
  6. My Favorite Non-Investing Books About Investing
  7. Doing Nothing is a Decision
  8. Maybe You Shouldn’t Do That
  9. The Bill Gross Investment Alarm Clock Theory
  10. A Closer Look at the Latest Long-Term Market Returns
  11. Observations on the Investment Process
  12. Predicting the Future of the Liquid Alt Industry
  13. DFA’s Dominance
  14. Should Fund Managers Care About the Behavior Gap?
  15. Why Own Bonds in a Portfolio?
  16. What Returns Can Investors Expect in Long-Term Treasuries?
  17. The Cost of Doing Business for Active Mutual Funds
  18. My Hopes for 2015
  19. How Much is Enough for Jeffrey Gundlach?
  20. The Danger of One Year Performance Numbers
  21. Updating My Favorite Performance Chart

2014 278

December 2014

  1. The 2014 Financial Market Awards
  2. Genius Must Be Proven
  3. How to Spot a Bad Forecaster
  4. Putting Passive Inflows Into Context
  5. One of the Worst Arguments in Finance
  6. The Best Books I Read in 2014
  7. Buffett and Munger on How to be a Hack
  8. More of the Same in Emerging Markets
  9. A Lesson in Market Crashes
  10. Is Technology Speeding Up Market Cycles?
  11. How to Save Money & Increase Your Happiness
  12. Avoiding the Extremes
  13. Diversifiable Risk in Sector ETFs
  14. The Cast of Characters on Finance Twitter
  15. Some People Will Never Learn
  16. What Happens to Stocks and Bonds When the Fed Raises Rates?
  17. “I have a high tolerance for repetition.”
  18. How the U.S. Dollar Affects Your Portfolio
  19. How Sector Rotation Wreaks Havoc on Investors
  20. What Caused the Great Depresssion?
  21. Not All Active Funds Consistently Underperform

November 2014

  1. Should Millennials Pay Off Student Loans or Save For Retirement?
  2. Portfolio Management & Decision Fatigue
  3. From Black Magic, Sorcery and Monsters to Finance 3.0
  4. 7 Simple Things Most Investors Don’t Do
  5. The Great Volatility Unwind
  6. Q&A With Alpha Architect’s Wes Gray: Part II
  7. Q&A With Alpha Architect’s Wes Gray: Part I
  8. Louis CK on Risk Management
  9. How To Win Any Argument About the Markets
  10. Avoiding The Recency Bias in Foreign Stock Markets
  11. The Difference Between an Investment Firm and a Marketing Firm
  12. Back-Testing The Tony Robbins All-Weather Portfolio
  13. Torturing Historical Market Data
  14. The Lollapalooza Effect in Active Management
  15. What Constitutes a Rich Life?
  16. “Speculation has always been a part of the market and always will be.”
  17. Perception Matters
  18. Stock Returns After Periods of Above Average Performance
  19. What the Risk Premium Can Tell Us About Future Returns
  20. The Value of I Don’t Know
  21. Market Earthquakes
  22. The Secret Sauce of the Investment Business
  23. How the Markets Tempt Us Into Making Mistakes
  24. Fixing the 401(k) Plan
  25. An Opportunity in Precious Metals Stocks?
  26. The Mutual Fund Observer’s Asset Allocation
  27. The Hardest Part

October 2014

  1. Managing Someone Else’s Emotions
  2. What’s the Relationship Between Oil Prices & The Stock Market?
  3. Words & Phrases That Should Be Banished From Finance
  4. GLD’s Fall From Grace
  5. What’s An Investor To Do About Bonds?
  6. When Are Value and Growth Going to Matter Again?
  7. Don’t Take This Personally
  8. Lies Investors Tell Themselves
  9. Misery Loves Company
  10. Pop Quiz Hot Shot: What’s the Line in the Sand?
  11. Why I Love the Stock Market
  12. Trial by Fire
  13. Common Sense Thoughts on Stock Market Losses
  14. Lessons From Dorsey Wright’s Thomas Dorsey
  15. Q&A With Millennial Money Author Patrick O’Shaughnessy
  16. What Are the Odds We’re Heading For Another Crash?
  17. Get Ready For The Bull Market in Opinions
  18. Forecasting Your Emotions
  19. It Is Always The Same Novel
  20. Here’s The Problem With Underperformance
  21. Feast or Famine in the Fairholme Fund
  22. Global Diversification: Accepting Good Enough to Avoid Terrible
  23. Fat Tails and Hyperinflationary Fears
  24. The Psychology of Lower Returns
  25. The Post-2008 Investment Conference Line-Up
  26. Will Rising Rates Hurt REIT Performance?

September 2014

  1. Did Bill Gross Tip The Pop Machine Over?
  2. Why Investment Advice Can Be So Confusing
  3. When Exotic Devices Create Exotic Problems
  4. Some Stocks Don’t Come Back
  5. My Experience with CDOs & The Real Estate Bubble
  6. Would a Repeat of the 1987 Crash Really Be That Bad?
  7. What is a Bubble?
  8. An Education From Guy Spier
  9. Enduring Lessons From the Financial Crisis
  10. Mutual Funds From Good to Great
  11. Excuses for Underperforming the Market
  12. How Often Do Stocks and Bonds Decline at the Same Time?
  13. How to Preserve Capital During a Bear Market
  14. The First Mover Advantage
  15. The Best & Worst Part About Investing in Emerging Markets
  16. Not All Markets Have Recovered From the Financial Crisis
  17. A Role Reversal For Stocks and Bonds
  18. Size is the Enemy of Performance
  19. Asking The Wrong Question
  20. Blurred Lines Between Active and Passive Investing
  21. Even Bull Markets Aren’t Easy
  22. Charlie Munger’s Investing Principles

August 2014

  1. Buying Insurance After a Disaster Strikes
  2. How Framing Affects Investment Decisions & Outcomes
  3. In Pursuit of Past Performance
  4. The Unintended Consequences of Risk Avoidance
  5. What Stage of the Bull Market Are We In?
  6. Learning How to Make Progress From Chris Pratt
  7. It’s Not a Chase For Yield, It’s a Chase For Fees
  8. All-Time Highs in the Stock Market are Perfectly Normal
  9. Looking Beyond Interest Rate Risk in Bonds
  10. The 4 Year Rule
  11. The New Headline Indicators
  12. Are Commodities For Trading or Investing?
  13. Does Mom and Pop Care About the Market Anymore?
  14. Do Risk-Adjusted Returns Matter?
  15. Don’t Sleep on the Millennials
  16. There’s No Such Thing As Precision When Investing
  17. Advice Doesn’t Have to be Complicated to be Good
  18. A Simple Approach to Reduce Portfolio Risk
  19. Unfortunate Realities of the Investment Business
  20. A Closer Look at CAN SLIM
  21. Peter Lynch on Stock Market Losses
  22. How Diversification Works

July 2014

  1. Caveats on the Long-Term
  2. Why Does Buy and Hold Have to be Impossible?
  3. Life Expectancy and Longevity Risk
  4. Unlearning From Peter Bernstein
  5. A Risk to Consider For Small Cap Stocks
  6. How Investment Performance Affects Savings Rates
  7. Benjamin Graham: Father of the Efficient Market Hypothesis?
  8. Delivering Alpha & Accepting Beta
  9. Retirement Concerns
  10. “Are you bullish or bearish?”
  11. Stock Corrections After Long Winning Streaks
  12. The Equal-Weighted Sector S&P 500
  13. Investing, Basically
  14. A Portfolio Premortem
  15. Book Review: Pragmatic Capitalism
  16. Why (Almost) Everyone Needs a Credit Card
  17. Universal Lessons From Every Investment Discipline
  18. Jim Simons & Nonintuitive Signals
  19. Emerging Markets Move Fast
  20. Charles Ellis on Values Discovery
  21. In Search of the Perfect Portfolio
  22. Why Willpower Alone Isn’t Enough to Change Your Behavior
  23. What if You Only Bought Near Market Bottoms?
  24. Learning From Vanguard Investors
  25. My Idea for a TV Show About Investing
  26. A Few Reminders

June 2014

  1. What Kind of Investor Are You?
  2. The Joy of Investing in Down Markets
  3. Why Value Investing Works
  4. Available Doesn’t Mean Necessary
  5. How Diversification Smooths Investment Cycles
  6. Gauging Investor Sentiment
  7. Thoughts on the Morningstar Conference
  8. Rick Ferri on Smart Beta
  9. Was the 1966-1982 Stock Market Really That Bad?
  10. Warren Buffett’s Biggest Losses
  11. How The Unemployment Rate Affects Stock Market Performance
  12. Financial Lessons From Tupac
  13. The George Clooney Perspective
  14. “We’re all Smart”
  15. Do We Need a Recession for a Meaningful Correction in Stocks?
  16. Fighting the Last War
  17. The Chase for Yield
  18. The Long Run Revisited
  19. Perma-Arguments
  20. The Style Box of the Future
  21. Expectations Management
  22. Myths and Misconceptions About Indexing

May 2014

  1. Charlie Munger on Human Misjudgement
  2. What Does The Bursting of a Bond “Bubble” Look Like?
  3. Time Traveling to Prior Crash Predictions
  4. Adam Sandler and Complacency Risk
  5. A Closer Look at the Russell 2000 & An Appreciation for Mid Cap Stocks
  6. My Letter to Young Analysts
  7. Interest Rate Scenarios & Stock Market Performance
  8. Financial Advice For My Fellow Millennials
  9. What’s Your Tolerance for Complexity?
  10. Which Side of the Argument Are You On?
  11. Why the Stock Market Makes You Feel Terrible Every Single Day
  12. When Saving Trumps Investing
  13. The Risk-Reward Trade-Off in Small Caps
  14. How Interest Rates Affect the Behavior Gap
  15. A Check-Up on GMO Fund Performance
  16. Yes, Stocks and Bonds Can Rise Together
  17. Vetting Your Sources of Financial Advice
  18. The S&P 500 Sector Quilt
  19. Book Review: Simple Wealth, Inevitable Wealth
  20. Financial Media Personalities and Their ESPN Doppelgangers
  21. Pattern Recognition

April 2014

  1. The CAPE Ratio and a Range of Historical Outcomes
  2. Some Things You Will Never (Rarely) Hear From a Portfolio Manager
  3. Point/Counterpoint on Real Estate as an Investment Option
  4. Buffett in the Down Years
  5. Why Aren’t There More Value Funds?
  6. The Worst 50/50 Stock/Bond Real Returns
  7. What’s the Worst 10 Year Return From a 50/50 Stock/Bond Portfolio?
  8. Inflation is a Relatively New Phenomenon
  9. What’s Your Reference Point?
  10. My Time on the Sell Side
  11. Financial Matters
  12. Why Does the Cycle of Fear and Greed Persist?
  13. William Bernstein on the Definition of Risk
  14. A Lesson in Portfolio Correlations
  15. 5 Questions
  16. The Small Cap Value Cycle
  17. An Investing Master’s Degree in History & Math
  18. How Financial Advisors Can Fend Off the Robots
  19. Beware Stock Picks From Your Favorite Media Pundit
  20. Do You Need Commodities in Your Portfolio?
  21. Quarterly Market Performance Update

March 2014

  1. You Can’t Always be a Contrarian
  2. The Larry Swedroe 5/25 Rule
  3. What Happens to Stocks When Profit Margins Contract?
  4. 8 Symptoms of Groupthink
  5. Should You Worry About Inflation Affecting Your Stock Returns?
  6. Does it Matter Where You Get Your Ideas?
  7. 99 Retirement Problems
  8. Diversifying Across Time
  9. Picture Me Rolling 5 Year Graphs
  10. Time For a Check-up on High Yield Bonds
  11. Your Very Own Black Swan Strategy
  12. Why a Higher Dividend Yield Doesn’t Tell the Entire Story
  13. The Four Abilities Every Investor Needs To Be Successful
  14. A Roth IRA for the Baby?
  15. The Theory of Reflexivity & Your Savings
  16. Sometimes the Stock Market Goes Down
  17. A Lesson in Judging Risk From Seth Klarman
  18. Bond Returns and Rising Interest Rates
  19. What if Long-Term Thinking Really Catches On?
  20. The Origins of Economic Terminology
  21. An Ode to March 9, 2009
  22. Don’t Let Janet Yellen Control Your Retirement Portfolio
  23. Euphoria: It’s So Hot Right Now
  24. Millennials & The New Death of Equities
  25. An Interview with WiseBanyan CEO Herbert Moore
  26. ‘Growth is Slowing’ is Not a Valid Reason to Dump Emerging Market Stocks
  27. What if Henry Blodget is Right About the Stock Market?
  28. The Way Way Back of Market Cycles

February 2014

  1. The Curious Case of John Hussman: Understanding the Biases in Your Process
  2. What if You Only Invested at Market Peaks?
  3. Some Words to Live By
  4. On the Merits of Being a Financial Historian
  5. Are the Wealthy Better Investors?
  6. Volatility is not Your Enemy
  7. The Rick Ferri 60/40 Portfolio
  8. You Can Complain About Your 401(k) or You Can Save More
  9. My Favorite Warren Buffett Shareholder Letter
  10. Things Just Keep Getting Better and Better for Investors
  11. A Lesson in Diversification and Regret Minimization
  12. The Most Overused Analogies in Finance
  13. Time to Refinance Your Mortgage?
  14. Your Weekly Reminder of the Greatness of John Bogle & Vanguard
  15. How Spending Money Affects Happiness
  16. “Is This a Person I Want to Work With?”
  17. Don’t Let Stock Losses Turn You into a Day Trader
  18. The Mutual Fund Walking Dead
  19. How Pete Carroll Used Less is More to Win the Super Bowl
  20. Yes, Size Matters
  21. Investing Contest: Pick the Biggest Loser

January 2014

  1. Putting Emerging Market Stock Losses Into Perspective
  2. Apple After Earnings
  3. Pricing Power
  4. Buffett’s Fourth Law of Motion: Your Behavior
  5. How Debt Affects Your Spending
  6. Economics: The Debate Club
  7. Answers to Your Biggest Financial Concerns
  8. Financial Envy
  9. How I Think About Stock Losses
  10. William Bernstein on Diversification
  11. The Evolution of Investment Analysis
  12. How the Rich got Rich
  13. Defining ‘This Time is Different’
  14. Investing in a Sideways Market
  15. Maybe Investors Aren’t Always Irrational
  16. What if the Future is Better Than We Think?
  17. Year End Investment Performance Review
  18. Asset Allocation Quilt
  19. Lessons Learned From William Bernstein
  20. 2013 Year in Review (Part 2)
  21. 2013 Year in Review (Part 1)

2013 179

December 2013

  1. 2013 Lessons Learned
  2. Books For Your New Year’s Resolution
  3. Forecasting and Your Local Meteorologist
  4. Remember How This Feels
  5. John Bogle on All-In Investment Expenses
  6. Enough.
  7. My 2014 Market Forecast
  8. Retirement Savings By Age Group
  9. The Bill Russell Investment Strategy
  10. Rick Ferri on Stock Losses
  11. Last Minute Gift Ideas
  12. How to Create a Bond Ladder Using ETFs
  13. My Biggest Mistake of 2013
  14. Investing in Stocks is Never Easy
  15. 3 Reasons to Save More Money
  16. Is Your Investment Strategy Mediocre?
  17. The Best Books I Read in 2013
  18. Professional Athletes and Their Money
  19. Stocks for the (Really) Long Term
  20. More Stock Bubble Talk
  21. You Should Listen to the Smart People, Right?
  22. Would You be Gullible Enough to Invest with Bernie Madoff?

November 2013

  1. New Round Numbers in Stocks! What Does it All Mean?
  2. My Black Friday Shopping Strategy
  3. Timeless Advice from Jesse Livermore
  4. Why Investors Love to Pick Stocks
  5. The Difference Between a Correction and a Crash
  6. You Might Have Really a Long Time Horizon to Invest
  7. Why Does the Middle Class Hate Stocks?
  8. Selling Tips from the Wolf of Wall Street
  9. Are Small and Mid Cap Stocks Getting Pricey?
  10. Second Level Thinking about Sector Investing
  11. How We Spend Our Money
  12. James Montier’s Lessons on Behavioral Investing
  13. How to Beat the Market Over 20 Years
  14. Are Pensions to Blame for the Retirement Crisis?
  15. Wait for a Crash or Put My Money Back to Work?
  16. Dinner Party Conversation Starters
  17. 3 Mistakes to Avoid Courtesy of Warren Buffett
  18. Losing Weight, Saving & Decision Fatigue

October 2013

  1. How to Think About New Highs in the Stock Market
  2. Why Costs Matter
  3. Your Thoughts About the Stock Market are Usually Wrong
  4. Why Scary Retirement Stats Don’t Work
  5. Am I Ready to Retire?
  6. European Stocks and Headline Risk
  7. Beware of Market Experts Wielding Misleading Graphs
  8. Being a Sports Fan and the Cycle of Fear, Hope & Greed
  9. Investing in Stocks is Counterintuitive
  10. What’s Wrong With This Retirement Plan?
  11. Dilbert Creator: Think Systems over Goals
  12. 11 Important Things from Howard Marks
  13. The Government Shutdown & Your Emergency Savings
  14. Can the Weather Move The Stock Market?
  15. What Makes Amazon.com So Great
  16. US Stocks Continue to Dominate 2013
  17. The Common Sense Investment Policy Statement
  18. Quarterly Market Update
  19. Overheard Conversation on Stocks, Politics and the Economy
  20. You Control What Matters Most for Retirement

September 2013

  1. Why Diversification Works
  2. Ray Dalio Explains Your Debt Cycle
  3. More Uncertainty Ahead?
  4. Investing is a Balancing Act
  5. The 10th Man Rule from World War Z
  6. Do You Need $1 Million to Retire?
  7. What Happened to Interest Rates This Week?
  8. All the Financial Advice You’ll Ever Need (Notecard Edition)
  9. Financial Advice for Newlyweds
  10. Inflation: The Silent Killer of Your Finances
  11. Of Course…But Maybe: Financial Advice From Louis CK
  12. Does Past Performance Matter?
  13. How Rising Interest Rates Affect Your Investments
  14. Lessons From The Coffeehouse Investor
  15. Time to Prepare for the Coming Crash?
  16. The Real World Retirement Calculator
  17. Advice from Warren Buffett Circa 1975

August 2013

  1. James Montier’s Laws of Investing
  2. The Benefits of Thinking Long-Term
  3. Good Debt vs. Bad Debt
  4. How to Ignore the Noise
  5. Saving for Retirement 101
  6. Where is the Stock Market Heading?
  7. 8 Things I Learned From Your Money & Your Brain
  8. Am I Diversified Enough?
  9. Resetting Bond Return Expectations
  10. What’s Your Best Investment Option?
  11. How to Create a Common Sense Investment Plan
  12. Where Do Stocks Go From Here?
  13. Index Funds and the Paradox of Skill
  14. Should You Invest in Peer to Peer Lending?
  15. A Behavioral Approach to Reduce Your Debt
  16. Money Value of Time: Lessons From Office Space
  17. You Need Nerves of Steel to Invest in Stocks
  18. You Should Hate Some of Your Investments

July 2013

  1. Michael Mauboussin on Skill vs. Luck
  2. Common Sense Investment Rules
  3. My Advice For Young Real Estate Buyers
  4. The Downside of Trying to Time the Market
  5. The Government Actually Does Something Right: Retirement
  6. Asset Allocation: What You Need to Know
  7. Saving Just 1% More
  8. Math Doesn’t Matter
  9. John Templeton’s 16 Rules For Investment Success
  10. Using Mint to Simplify Your Finances
  11. Respect the Power of Mean Reversion
  12. How Herbert Dow Put Germany Out of Business
  13. How to Choose Yourself
  14. You Can Lose Money in Cash
  15. The Benefits of Global Diversification
  16. Vanguard’s Principles For Investing Sucess
  17. The Common Sense Budget
  18. Real Financial Advisors
  19. Should We Be Forced to Save For Retirement?
  20. Interest Rate Risk

June 2013

  1. Me and My Money – Globe and Mail
  2. Where To Invest in a TINA Market
  3. Bond Investment Strategies
  4. Forecasting or Coin Flipping?
  5. Bond Fund Performance
  6. How Warren Buffett, a Rabbi, and Steve Jobs Can Help You Think About Risk and Opportunities
  7. Investing in Bond Funds
  8. Saving and Investing With Smaller Amounts of Money
  9. Bond Investment Risks
  10. Simple or Complex Investments?
  11. How Do I Pay For My Children’s College Tuition?
  12. Why Bother Investing in Bonds?
  13. What Are You Focusing On?

May 2013

  1. What We Can Learn from Warren Buffett and Bill Gross
  2. Dividends for Yield, Stability and Outperformance
  3. Investing in Bonds
  4. Honest Investment Advice From a Wall Street Professional
  5. Lessons From Thinking Fast and Slow
  6. How to Lose Money with the Stock Market at All-Time Highs
  7. Should I Save More in My 401(k)?
  8. How to Invest 100% of Your Portfolio in the Stock Market
  9. How Do You Earn Higher Rates on a Savings Account?
  10. Why Picking Stocks is Even Harder Than You Think
  11. How to Create a Disciplined Investment Plan
  12. How to Pick Active Mutual Funds (If You Have to)
  13. Lessons From an NBA Legend
  14. What if You Won the Lottery?
  15. Lessons from the Wealth Divide

April 2013

  1. Other Bull Market Risks
  2. I Have No Retirement Savings. Where Do I Start?
  3. Stocks Will Go Down
  4. Do Your Mutual Funds Outperform the Market?
  5. Emergency Savings vs. Debt Repayment
  6. Robert Shiller on Real Estate Investments
  7. How to Build a Common Sense Investment Portfolio
  8. Should You Make Early Mortgage Payments?
  9. What You Don’t Know About Stocks and The Unemployment Rate
  10. Lessons From The Behavior Gap
  11. I Tried Timing the Market. Now What?
  12. Don’t Reach For Yield
  13. Focus on What You Can Control
  14. How to Choose a Financial Advisor

March 2013

  1. Financial Advice March Madness Edition
  2. Determining Your Risk Tolerance
  3. Real Estate Investment Performance
  4. Lessons From Cyprus
  5. Do You Need Life Insurance?
  6. The Truth About Stocks and the Economy
  7. Common Sense Links for the Week
  8. Can You Handle Investing In Stocks?
  9. How to Manage Your Money on Auto Pilot
  10. Is Real Estate a Good Investment?
  11. How to Choose the Right Asset Allocation
  12. Common Sense Links for the Week

February 2013

  1. How to Get Started with Asset Allocation
  2. Stock Investing Tips to Combat Fear
  3. Common Sense Links for the Week
  4. How to Use Compound Interest to Your Advantage
  5. How Much Do I Need to Retire?
  6. Common Sense Links For The Week
  7. The Benefits of Using Index Funds
  8. Less is More: Keep Investing Simple
  9. Common Sense Links for the Week
  10. Personal Finance Management

2017–2021 →