“Listen, here’s the thing. If you can’t spot the sucker in your first half hour at the table, then you are the sucker.” - Rounders, 1998.
When you buy index funds, you are betting that over time, the stock market overall will rise. (A rising …
In an earlier article, (part of my Chapter 2 notes on "Investor's Manifesto" by Bernstein) I looked at the interest rate of investment-grade corporate bonds, their historical default rate, and estimated inflation rate, and couldn't figure out why anyone was buying corporate bonds. However, I wasn't very confident in my …
Here I continue my review of "The Investor's Manifesto" by Bernstein with my notes from Chapter 2. In Part 2 of my notes, we cover estimating returns on bonds.
One important note: In Part 1 of my Chapter 2 notes, we talked about how unwise it is to use historical …
Here I continue my review of "The Investor's Manifesto" by Bernstein with my notes from Chapter 2, which could be subtitled "Here comes the math!"
I'm not naturally math-minded (I count on my fingers) but I've worked through each mathematical example in this chapter using either pencil and paper or …
Continuing my in-depth examination of "The Investor's Manifesto," we'll examine Chapter 1.
Bernstein talked at length in his various prefaces about his desire to keep his books readable. This is the third paragraph of his first chapter:
“What I cannot figure out,” my friend …
In my last post, I introduced "The Investor's Manifesto" and William J. Bernstein. In this post, I'll give you my notes from the Preface.
Bernstein starts off optimistic as hell:
Finance is a relatively circumscribed field; not that much is really known for certain. The body of knowledge that the …
I saw a recommendation for "The Intelligent Asset Allocator" by William Bernstein and checked it out of the library. It's supposed to be (with "A Random Walk Down Wall Street" by Burton Malkiel) one of the essential books on investing.
Bernstein wrote two later books on asset allocation. In the …
Asset allocation is the idea that, by combining different classes of assets, you can greatly reduce the amount that your portfolio fluctuates up and down. You get increased stability and safety, probably at the expense of some gains.
For instance, if you invest only in Google stock, you'll have the …
Your next job is to max out your retirement accounts. You should do this (with one exception) after all your debts are paid off.
The one exception is when you have a 401k plan with your employer and your employer will match your contributions. This is free money, which is …
You are Superman, and debt is your Kryptonite. If you're already Financially Competent(or think you are) you can probably come up with a dozen situations where debt is actually a good idea. In some of them, you'd actually be right. But if you're Financially Competent enough to use debt …