If you were on the sidelines during the 25 best-performing days since 1970, your returns would have been mush. This is an example of a factual statement that isn’t truthful, because not even the worst market timer in the world could invest for nearly 12,000 days and miss the 25 best. In this example, we need to…

26 years ago today, while I was watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the Dow Jones Industrial Average crossed 3,000 for the first time ever. I love looking back at what the newspapers were saying following market events and milestones. This was not the high. Not even close.  Even without the Dow topping 3,000, individual investors…

Articles You should think of buying investments like you buy food–do it often. Make it a habit to invest your money like you make it a habit to pay your rent/mortgage. By of Dollars and Data A one percentage point increase in ETF ownership also experience a 14% reduction in the average magnitude of their future…

“Even if there weren’t fees and expenses, the odds are you’ll underperform.” -Hendrik Bessembinder An excellent piece from Bloomberg came out over the weekend, The Math Behind Futility, which looks beyond the usual explanations as to why the majority of professional stock pickers fail to keep up with an index. No, it’s not just the fees or the…

Articles   Successful investors can differentiate business performance from stock performance and can take advantage of those investors who can’t. By Ian Cassel The inventory of homes for sale in Minneapolis dropped by about 25% in February compared with a year earlier, while the median sale price rose by 7.6% to $223,000. By Laura Kusisto …

For more than 16 years, Cal Ripken suited up for a record 2,632 consecutive games. I find it challenging to watch nine innings, he was on the field for 24,000 of them. This streak will never be broken, ever. A similarly amazing streak occurred in the stock market in the nineties, which has the potential to…

April has historically been a very good month for stocks, with the first two weeks in particular standing out. The average gain in the first half of April, according to a MarketWatch column, is 1.2%, compared with an average gain of 0.2% for all other months. Is there something to the IRS effect? I don’t…

Articles Amazon, the world’s most remarkable firm, is just getting started “Never before has a company been worth so much for so long while making so little money: 92% of its value is due to profits expected after 2020.” By The Economist The Difference Between a Prediction and a Probability “Tell them the market is…

Maybe. Stock market capitalization to GDP was once Warren Buffett’s favorite indicator. A quick glance of this ratio shows it recently blew past the two previous highs. Nobody reading this needs to be reminded of what followed those peaks. Below is another metric that shows you have to be out of your mind to own U.S….

I recently received an email about a piece of software that would allow us to stress test our portfolios. Some of the scenarios included: What if interest rates rise back to historical levels or above, with 10-year treasury rates at 5%, as a result of renewed growth in the US economy? What if the S&P…