When our kids were younger, I would sometimes declare an abnormally early bedtime like 6:00pm. It made complete sense to me: I’m tired, they’re tired, win-win. But my declarations were always met with much weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then I would relent, pushing it out to 7:00pm, still getting all the tears, and ending…
This most recent quarter and the Tariff announcements immediately afterward (which we detailed in our Tariffs and a Declaration of Parental Independence blog post here) reminded investors that markets don’t move in straight lines. After a strong end to 2024, stocks stumbled out of the gate this year. The S&P 500 declined -4.3% as interest…
When we consider the possible variations within a financial plan (investment markets, job changes, health concerns, family dynamics, etc.), we like to say, “It’s better to prepare than to predict.” It would be hard to find a year that defied predictions more than 2025. In the most recent update to his Annual Forecasting Follies, Bob…
2024 is shaping up to be one of the rare years with no major asset class in decline (see far right column in the chart below.) Large Cap US, Foreign Stocks, and Real Estate have led the way, while Bonds and Commodities have returns barely more than money markets. Below, we will detail the relevant…
A Quarter on Repeat Our family has a handful of stories we tell on repeat. There is the one about my driver’s ed instructor who made me go through the Burger King drive-thru to pick up her lunch (a “Whopper with no mayonnaise this time!” emphasis hers.) After discovering mayonnaise on her Whopper, she made…
“Dad, our lawn looks like the Masters!” That’s an actual quote from our eleven-year-old son last weekend. When we moved in 12 years ago, the backyard was a jungle without a blade of grass. But over the years, we’ve slowly transformed it to allow us to host countless parties and backyard football games. It has…
Happy Adjacent I recently learned the term “Happy Adjacent” when I stumbled on a YouTube series from Mythical Kitchen called “Last Meals.” The episodes center on Chef Josh Scherer asking famous people (some more famous than others) what they would eat for their last meal on Earth. Josh then recreates the meal, and they sit…
In this Quarter in Charts, we have several graphs detailing the current interest rate environment, global market events, the bond bear market, and various economic indicators. We use this data to explain what happened (and look ahead to what could happen) in economies, markets, and investment portfolios. But none of those graphs will be able…
Last month, I got swept up in reading Brian Doyle’s posthumous collection of essays, “One Long River of Song.” I was particularly drawn to his fascination with White Sturgeon. Specifically, an 11-foot-long…
There’s a fancy economics term for this: “diminishing marginal utility.” Textbooks use far too much paper trying to explain it when really they should just talk about ice cream. The idea is that the first scoop of ice cream tastes great. The second scoop of ice cream tastes a little less great than the first. And the third scoop of ice cream might make your stomach hurt.
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