People have often asked me what I think about value and small-cap equity portfolios. So, this is a post I always wanted to write but kept postponing because I never knew how to best frame it. But now I have the perfect excuse to write it; last week, I listened to the ChooseFI podcast and … Continue reading My thoughts on Small-Cap and Value Stocks
December 9, 2020 – Right at the start, let me point out that, no, I’ve not gone to the bad side! I will not try to sell any actively-managed funds here. If you’re a part of the passive investing crowd, which is a large portion of the FIRE community, you might find the title a bit … Continue reading How to Beat the Stock Market
April 8, 2020 – Wow, we made it through the first quarter of 2020. Seemed like an eternity! Remember January 2020? Suleimani Drone strike and an almost-war with Iran? Australian Wildfires? February? The Super Bowl, the impeachment trial? Even early March: Super Tuesday (March 3). It all feels like years ago! All those daily 100-point S&P 500 … Continue reading Some Financial Lessons from the First Quarter of 2020 (incl. Jack Bogle’s Revenge)
Update (3/13/2020): Well, it is a Bear Market as of this week! We dipped well below the -20% line on March 12 due to the awful 10% meltdown that day. But we also recovered very nicely on Friday the 13th, of all days!!! I’m putting together some notes about my thoughts. To be published on … Continue reading Feeling scared already? It’s not even a Bear Market as of March 4! (But it became one a week later!)
January 9, 2023 – Happy New Year, everyone! I haven’t written any updates on my put-writing strategy in a while, so I thought this is an excellent opportunity to review the year 2022 performance and some of the changes I have made since my last write-up in late 2021. Let’s take a look…
October 26, 2020 – A few weeks ago I wrote the post “Do we really have to lower our Safe Withdrawal Rate to 0.5% now?” about the pretty ridiculous claim that the Safe Withdrawal Rate should go all the way down to just 0.5%, in light of today’s ultra-low interest rates. The claim was transparently false … Continue reading Can we raise our Safe Withdrawal Rate when inflation is low? – SWR Series Part 41
July 1, 2020 – One question that I frequently get – in the comments section, via email and in-person – is whether the continued shift away from active stock picking and into passive index investing is all going to create one big, scary bubble. Will this all end in tears? As a member of the FIRE … Continue reading My Thoughts on the “Passive Investing Bubble”
January 20, 2020 – Happy New Year! It’s time for another installment in the Safe Withdrawal Series! Here’s a topic that I’ve thought about for a while and that was also requested dozens, maybe even hundreds of times from commenters: What about gold? Gold has been a safe haven asset for many decades (Centuries? Millenials???) and … Continue reading Using Gold as a Hedge against Sequence Risk – SWR Series Part 34
Happy New Year! Geez, are you all glad that 2018 is over? What a rough fourth quarter! It started quite harmlessly with Suze Orman poking fun at the FIRE movement. Not a big deal, we hit back and even had some fun with it. But the quarter ended with Mr. Market taking our stock portfolio … Continue reading Will FIRE turn into “Fake Independence Rapidly Evaporating?” Relax! We’re going to be fine, despite the recent stock market volatility!
April 28, 2021 – Welcome back to another installment of the Safe Withdrawal Rate Series. In the previous installment, Part 44, I went through a number of general tax planning ideas, and I promised another post to introduce an Excel Sheet, I created to help me with my tax planning. There were numerous reader requests a … Continue reading A Retirement Tax-Planning Case Study (and Excel Toolkit!) – SWR Series Part 45
