If you own a waterfront home, or a mountain retreat, or some land with a barn not too from the city, then you know their values are going up. I’m seeing it here in coastal Newport at every turn with license plates from NY, NJ, MA, and CT filling the streets—the secret’s out. But most have been dreaming about the “lifestyle” for years. They just needed a push to get in the game. “If you’re on some kind of fence, Covid shoves you off of it,” explains Luke Siegel as he and his wife Johanna bought a home on 30 acres with a barn just north of NYC. (You can read about here). Sitting on the … [Read more...]

There’s never been a better time to get your financial house in order. Don’t let inertia beat you down. It’s time to get up, put pen to paper, and make sure everything you own deserves a place in your portfolio or decide if it has served its time. Treat your portfolio with the love and care you have for your home and garden and, believe me, good things will happen for you and your family. Make it a good day. Life is Good: You’re Ready to Protect Your Turf Your Retirement Life: Investment Planning in One Chart Your Retirement Life: Parents, do You have an Investment … [Read more...]

When I was at Babson, I had a part-time job as a phone rep at Wall Street Games—a stock market contest that used options to boost returns. It was also a training ground for stockbrokers to try out their strategies. My job was to put (pun intended) their strategies in place and let ‘em ride. It was a training ground for me too, giving me a front-row seat in how big money was lost. Now, as new investors pile into the stock market, whether out of boredom or desperation from losing their jobs to COVID-19 shutdowns, the Wall Street Journal reports they are betting big in the options market. What … [Read more...]

If you had a million dollars, would you let a robot do the investing for you? You probably wouldn’t. But that’s the direction companies are taking, including Vanguard. When you invest a single penny of your hard-earned money, you need to think about it as if it were a million dollars. That’s the mindset you want to have at all times when you invest. There is NO SUCH THING as a "small loss," or money that doesn’t matter because "it’s too small to worry about." Once you get into the mindset of growing your money, you become a serious investor and not a speculator. Leaving this work … [Read more...]

You want some ugly math? Look at public pensions. They assume an expected rate of return above seven percent. What if that’s not met? In the real world, there are consequences. Take, for example, a million-dollar portfolio. If you “need” a return of seventy thousand, or seven percent, what happens if you don’t get it? You’re underfunded. A more reasonable expectation would be, say, four percent, or forty thousand. Pensions are invested in a mix of bonds and stocks, so getting stock market returns is basically impossible. In the above example, an actual return of four percent leaves a … [Read more...]