Warren Buffett’s annual letter to shareholders has always been a treasure trove of investing insight. This year’s letter, which was recently released, is no different. Among other things, Buffett urges individuals to stay within their “circle of competence,” saying that: “Most investors, of course, have not made the study of […]
stocks
On Monday, I found myself wondering if the stock market was open or closed. It was MLK Day, but it’s not always closed on holidays. After a quick check, I learned that it was closed for the holiday. And that got me to wondering about stock market holidays in general. […]
A reader named Jorio recently wrote in to ask: The stock market has skyrocketed. How can I harvest some of the gains and protect them from a “bubble burst”? Indeed, 2013 saw a huge runup in the stock market, with the S&P 500 rising nearly 30% and the Dow increasing […]
In case you missed it, Vanguard recently released data looking average portfolio size and stock allocation as a function of age. It’s an imperfect analysis in that it focuses on retirement plan participants at Vanguard. Thus, it’s a non-random sample and limited to defined contribution plan holdings. But still… Those […]
The past few years have seen an explosion of interest in dividend investing. While there are (arguably) good reasons for this, many investors don’t seem to fully understand what dividend payments actually represent. I thus thought it might be worth shedding some light on the subject. Note that my goal […]
Okay… As requested, I’ve pulled together a generic version of the asset allocation spreadsheet that I mentioned in my post about deciding when to rebalance. While I keep mine in Google Docs, I discovered some limitations that impacted the flexibility of the spreadsheet when I was building the generic version […]
I’ve talked in the past about why you should rebalance your portfolio. In short, you do so to maintain your desired risk profile. But how do you decide when to rebalance? While it’s good to keep things in check, there’s no sense in going overboard. While some rebalance at set […]
A reader named Austin recently wrote in to ask the following question: Can you please comment on Betterment’s recommendation of a “moderate risk” portfolio including 30-50% stocks for one’s emergency fund instead of cash. What do you think of this idea? Sure enough, Betterment is arguing that “you can do […]
