I haven’t written a Bulls vs. Bears post in a while. Given the tremendous stock market run from the end of last year through the end of the first quarter of this year, it seems like a good time to assess the current position of the markets. I recently read two articles which, on the…
So the first month of 2012 is behind us. Did you set any goals for the year? How are they coming along? There were some fantastic financial articles out there last month. Here’s a tiny sample: 1. Farnam Street posted an excerpt from a new study on Willpower & New Year’s Resolutions. Apparently, the key…
Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history. ~Plato In our recent discussions about the Couch Potato style of investing, I mentioned that this strategy relies on historical market returns. I pointed out that including a component that reflects valuations might improve the strategy. This is basically the Valuation Informed Indexing approach about which Rob…
Prosperity is a great teacher; adversity is a greater. ~William Hazlitt If you believe the opening quote, we are in for some great lessons – at least according to Felix Zulauf of Zulauf Asset Management in Switzerland. The transcript of a recent interview with him was published by McAlvany Weekly Commentary. It is optimistically entitled…
I’ve been pretty distracted lately with the whole house-hunting/moving to a new city thing, so I haven’t been able to follow the financial world as closely as usual. In spite of being out of town and preoccupied a fair bit in April, I was able to dig up some real gems for this month’s round-up….
One bright day in the middle of night two dead boys rose to fight. Back to back they faced each other, drew their swords and shot one another. A deaf policeman heard the noise, and saved the lives of the two dead boys. If you don’t believe this lie is true, ask the blind man,…
Stock market activity over the last ten years has proven that “buy and hold” is a dead concept and it’s very likely that going forward over the next ten years, “buy and hold” will continue to be an invalid and ineffective concept. Because over the last ten years, the S&P 500 has generated a negative…
Year’s end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us. ~ Hal Borland Update: This article was included in the Carnival of Financial Planning #170 posted at The Skilled Investor. Objectively, there’s nothing magical about the beginning of a New Year. Midnight…
