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…
Category: Behavioral Finance
How’s That Third Scoop of Ice Cream?
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.
Quarter In Charts – Q1 2023
Kids Today Have It Too Easy As a dad of teenagers, it’s my duty to occasionally put on the “grumpy old man” act and talk about how kids today have it too easy. I say things like, “You know when I was a boy…” followed by a misremembered anecdote of my days working at the
An Unaffordable Housing Market: Why and What’s Next?
The cost of home ownership has risen to an all-time high over the past 24 months, and there are three main reasons for this: Are current home prices and interest rates sustainable? I think we’d all agree the answer is “no,” but what story is the data telling us? And what can we expect to
Am I Rich?
How we spend our time and how we spend our money should make us feel rich. The hard part is discovering what “rich” really means to each of us. I learned a lot about being rich in early November when we got the call that my father-in-law had suffered a stroke. After what was both
Quarter in Charts – Q4 2022
It’s hard to describe how rare and painful 2022 was for investors of all kinds. The phrase “off the charts” is often overused, but in this case, it seems appropriate. And while we’ll look at the causes and details of this year’s returns, we’ll also spend some time exploring how investors should consider viewing the
Quarter in Charts – Q3 2022
Over the last few weeks, I kept the kids up far past their bedtimes to witness Aaron Judge break the American League single-season home run record. While we had to sit through a whole lot of walks, we eventually got to witness a once-in-a-lifetime event that we’ll tell some grandkids about. Sadly, this year, investors have also witnessed an investment market for the record books. Through the charts below (and a recounting of my real-world experience with our 15-year-old new driver) we’ll examine the year so far, talk through viewing investments through the “windshield” of a financial plan, and see how investors have typically fared better than average coming out of historic times like these.
Quarter in Charts – Q2 2022
“The Circumstances” So far this year, investors have experienced a dramatic increase in interest rates and sustained high inflation, coupled with a decrease in both stock and bond prices not seen in half a century. All of this while the US continued to add jobs and public companies increased profits at a steady pace. Below
Understanding Probabilities of Success in Financial Planning
It Looks Like I’ve got a 75% Chance of Making it Home From Work When we talk about achieving financial goals, we use the term “Probability of Success”. It comes from a Monte Carlo mathematical model that produces a number ranging from 1% to 99%. But what does a 50%, 75%, or 99% probability of
Humans and Monkeys Fall for the Same Trick
I am sure you’ve heard of the monkey trapping technique where a hunter hollows a coconut, ties the coconut to a tree, and leaves a treat such as fruit inside the coconut. The hole is big enough to fit the monkey’s empty hand, but when it makes a fist, the monkey’s hand becomes too big