Start early to attain your goal. Starting at age 20: Assuming a 6% return, compounded monthly, you should aim to invest $364 a month toward retirement to reach $1 million in savings by age 65. Starting at age 30: Assuming a 6% return, compounded monthly, you should aim to invest $704 a month toward retirement…
Category: investing
Robinhood investing anyone?
Robinhood is an investing platform geared to millennials to make investing look so easy, fun, and sexy… The New York Times reports: “the company has also faced intense scrutiny for its practices.” “The app has become a favorite of young and inexperienced investors, enticed by no-fee trading, offers of free stocks and an engaging user…
The least dirty shirt in the laundry: Negative bond yields
Well, we aren’t there yet (negative interest rates) but anyone with a savings account or looking a bond yields lately (or listening to Federal Reserve Bank Chair Jerome Powell) knows that rates are falling fast. Many European countries are issuing bonds with NEGATIVE interest rates, meaning that the investor pays the bond issuer a fee…
Risk Less and Prosper: Your Guide to Safer Investing
During the market volatility brought on by the Coronavirus is a great time to read this classic book by Zvi Bodie and Rachelle Taqqu (2011). A practical guide to getting personal investing right “Somewhere along the way, something has gone very wrong with the way individuals save and invest. Too often, households are drawn in…
The Little Book of Behavioral Investing: How Not to Be Your Own Worst Enemy
I haven’t read this yet but it seems like a very timely title and approach during these times of drmatic financial market volatility.According to the Good reads website the book is : “A detailed guide to overcoming the most frequently encountered psychological pitfalls of investing Bias, emotion, and overconfidence are just three of the many…
The "Perfect Storm of Stupid" and other Coronavirus stock market theories
Why has the stock market gone up dramatically (after initial plunge) during a pandemic?Some ideas… courtesy of Planet Money The “Perfect Storm of Stupid” Theory Basically, Americans are super bored. They’re at home. Sports are canceled. The kids are screaming. The casinos are closed. And around 800,000 additional people have decided to plop down money…
How to survive a bear market
“Investors can survive a bear market the same way hikers survive an encounter with a bear: Remain calm and don’t make sudden moves” as Wall Street Journal writer Jason Zweig advised on April 4-5, 2020. See: Staying safe around bears: https://www.nps.gov/subjects/bears/safety.htm Consider your entire portfolio, including your human capital and Social Security benefits.as Zweig explains:…
How I learned to stop worrying and love the bear market
Spencer Jakab, writing for The Wall Street Journal (3/28-29/20) explains: A surprising share of a new bull market’s returns pile up in its very early stages, when the average investor is at their most fearful “Investor psychology in a major bear market is a mirror image of what it was the past few years: The…
So you think you’re going to time the market and jump in when things look good
Forget about it! The stock market lurches up and down in dramatic gains and losses with no warning!No bell rings at the bottom of the market signaling it’s time to buy!Some recent examples, among the gut wrenching downward drops:March 27, 2020 the Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 12.8%! in one day!April 9, 2020: the DJIA…
A Simple Global Market Portfolio
A Simple Global Market Portfolio consists of “all stocks, bonds and other assets that are readily tradeable. This is the mix of investments that’s owned by all investors worldwide and reflects our collective judgment of what different securities are worth” writes Jonathan Clements in the Humble Dollar weekly email. Sign up at https://humbledollar.com You can…