When you measure performance in your portfolio, are you getting the right picture? If you are like most investors, the answer is no. Here is what I wrote in December 2013 about how you should be measuring performance: Cycles and Investment Success Understanding cycles is vital to your long-term investment success. Most folk intuitively understand that the economy and the financial markets go through cycles. The economy expands and then it contracts, the stock market rises and falls, interest rates go up and they go down. Cycles just come with the territory in a free market economy, but … [Read more...]

Before you answer, remember that at least 50% of gunfighters end up dead. Are you the type of person who will dutifully grow your investment portfolio over the years by shepherding it in the right direction? Or will you risk it all in one high risk gunfight after another until your number is called? Consider what I wrote here, thirty years ago in December of 1988. It’s a comparison of some high-level shepherding vs. some inexperienced gun slinging. Do you know the two most powerful words in investing? If you’ve been with me through the years, you know the answer. But for all of my … [Read more...]

Most Americans are simply not saving enough. GOBankingRates released a survey this week showing that 42% of Americans will retire broke. Hopefully, that doesn’t include you, but even if you have been saving, it’s a good bet you could do more. In July 2014, I explained to readers why they should boost savings. Boost Your Savings The strategy implication of a low-return environment is that savings must play a greater role in your investment plan. The stock and bond markets aren’t going to bail you out. To secure a prosperous financial future, today’s low-return environment demands that … [Read more...]

The China Household Finance Survey run by Gan Li at Chengdu’s Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, recently found that one fifth–that’s 20%–of Chinese homes do not have occupants. Instead these homes are owned as investments in what could be one of the world’s most distorted markets ever. Back in February of 2012, I wrote about China’s “ghost cities,” and the dangers of investing in a command economy. Government subsidies, capital controls, and excessive regulations distort the Chinese economy, making analysis of normal economic signals difficult. With Chinese shares … [Read more...]

Four years ago, I told readers the story of David L. Stone, the manager of Beacon Hill Fund. The point of my story then, as it is now, was to encourage investors like you to avoid speculation, and instead to be patient with your money. Use simple strategies you can stick to in good times and in bad. Here’s what I wrote then: As I write to you, I am listening to 1960s “Soul Station” by Hank Mobley, Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers, and Art Blakey. It is an excellent remastered LP edition of the original on a stereo system that includes a Denon quartz lock turntable from the mid-’80s, a real basic … [Read more...]

Not a down year this century. Projected by Richard C. Young to advance again in 2018! How does your retirement portfolio look? Do you actually have any idea what you are doing? Do you feel like you are over your head and investing with a crap-shoot mentality? Are you subsisting on outmoded, far-too-big mutual funds or, worse yet, those ghastly oversized index funds? Are you a total neophyte on bond investing and pretty much devoid of understanding the miracle of interest, patience, and compounding? If your answer is yes to any of these questions, you may require a whole new … [Read more...]