Some people go swimming by diving into the pool; others prefer to edge into the water gradually, especially if the water’s cold. A decision about putting money into an investment can be somewhat similar. Is it best to invest your money all at once, putting a lump sum into something you believe will do well? […]
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6 Ways to Fight Fear of Volatility with Facts
You wouldn’t be human if you didn’t fear loss. Nobel Prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman demonstrated this with his loss-aversion theory, showing that people feel the pain of losing money more than they enjoy gains. As such, investors’ natural instinct is to flee the market when it starts to plummet, just as greed prompts us to […]
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When will the Bull Market End?… When Did it Actually Start?
• S&P 500 average length of a bull market is 97 months • S&P 500 average length of a bear market is 18 months Consider what are alleged to be the two longest running bull markets in modern financial history—one is the current one, purportedly starting back in March 2009, and the other one going from […]
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Concentrated Stock Positions: Considerations and Strategies
Whether you inherited a large holding, exercised options to buy your company’s stock, sold a private business, hold restricted stock, or have benefited from repeated stock splits over the years, having a large position in a single stock carries unique challenges. Even if the stock has done well, you may want more diversification, or have […]
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Asset Allocation in Retirement
Your asset allocation strategy in retirement will probably be different than the one you used when saving for retirement. During your accumulation years, your asset allocation decisions may have been focused primarily on long-term growth. But as you transition into retirement, your priorities for and demands on your portfolio are likely to be different. For […]
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Following the (News) Crowd… Is it Good for You?
There is no finer example of humans’ herd mentality than listening to, and acting upon, the tidbits of the financial news media. As was commented recently, what if you left the design of elevator buttons to these folks in the media? Instead of “UP and “DOWN” buttons, wouldn’t they make them read, “SOAR!” and “PLUNGE!”? The media types exaggerate to […]