With everything that’s going on in the world today, Your Survival Guy is concerned about your safety. Stuff happens, and before you know it, you’re stuck in the fog. You know from here and here about my own experiences in fog. It happens fast. You deal with it. Because living life on the dock is no way to live. Preparation and experience can help. But at what cost? You know this market is foggy. You know our government is in debt up to its eyeballs. Remember the government bailout of GM, leaving common shareholders, the investing class, in ruins? The more government creep we have in the … [Read more...]
My Favorite Investment Tool, Real Estate, Water, Fog, and More
Happy Friday. Yes, you can sink your teeth into the short-term end of the yield curve, and there’s plenty of other opportunities along the way. Think of me as your guide. It can get foggy out there. Look at my favorite investment tool and the yields you can get today versus only three years ago. I can tell you investing is a lot like boating in the fog. If you have a plan and some experience navigating in it, then it doesn't need to keep you on the dock. If I stayed home every time there was some threat of fog, I’d miss a lot of good days on the water. The key is to become … [Read more...]
RAGE Gauge August: This Market is Foggy
Your Survival Guy’s latest RAGE Gauge is in, and before I get into this month’s reading, I want to revisit my piece from yesterday on getting stuck in the fog last weekend. I could have stayed on the dock. But I’m confident in my ability to navigate in the fog because I’ve done it many times, and I know how I like to navigate—carefully from mark to mark. I have electronics. The radar and chartplotter. But I also know not to depend solely on them to safely find my destination. The technology is outstanding. But I’ve been in enough situations to know nothing beats my own two eyes and taking … [Read more...]
Note to Self: Don’t Wind Up on the Rocks
Your Survival Guy got caught up in some fog Saturday afternoon halfway through our trip from Newport to Mattapoisett. All was clear while preparing to leave the dock, but I heard the fog horn faintly in the distance. We were cruising right along, and then, on the horizon, we could see the dark fog cloud rolling in. I turned on the radar which overlays the chart plotter map, and had a few minutes to get my bearings just using the electronics. One of my biggest fears in fog is other boaters. Sometimes all the technology in the world isn’t enough. I relate it to SUVs with four-wheel drive … [Read more...]
Don’t Get Caught Up on Prices, Do This
When market prices float through space, it’s worthwhile remembering this: prices are a qualitative measure, not quantitative. Prices are opinions. Everyone’s got one. They can change with the wind. But, stock dividends, for example, they’re quantitative. They’re tangible. You can see them enter your account if you pay attention. Trading stocks—a zero-sum game—is not investing. That’s speculation. With most of the world focusing on prices, why wouldn’t you focus on dividends? We learn at a young age how to make money. How to save. But at some point, after they’ve accumulated a pile of … [Read more...]
Investing for Your Survival, Not Mr. Market’s
You are my hero. Not Mr. Market. You invested or saved your first dollar for no other reason than survival—self-protection. I know this because I’m Your Survival Guy. You tell me your stories, and I listen. Rare is the occasion where you went from rags to riches by trading stocks. No, you worked for it. Your story is one where your back was against the wall, and you needed to survive. You wanted a better life. You needed to raise your family. The part where you thrived came later, often much later. You appreciate what you have now because you know how hard it was to get. “I don’t want to do … [Read more...]
Your Success: A Lesson From the Beginning of Time
Happy Monday. I want you to take a moment to think about your success. Did you get to where you are by trading stocks? Probably not. But with the market rebounding, “meme stocks” are back. When I think about your successes in life, I think about your family, your business, your career. In other words, you worked to get to where you are today. You didn’t invest in some meme stock, staking your life on some stock symbol. No, you invested in my favorite three letters: Y-O-U. You, not anyone else, got up to go to work for your family. You put the food on the table. You made sacrifices. And you … [Read more...]
Investing Mistakes to Avoid: #2 Tomorrowland
When I was a kid, some of my favorite memories were vacations to Walt Disney World and going on Space Mountain—repeatedly. Then after every ride, I’d stand on the conveyor belt and look at Tomorrowland and think about how cool it would be to someday live in space. That’s a long time ago now, and here I am writing to you from Earth, still wondering if that will ever happen. Maybe. But a lot of investing days and years have passed since then, and if we could time travel from the 70s, investing in stocks would have been a good move if—and that’s a big if—you had time. Just … [Read more...]
Prepared for When the Next Black Swan Swoops In?
In my conversations with you, we talk about the markets. We talk about prices. We talk about how your portfolio is aligned. We talk about when the next Black Swan will swoop in because it always does—just never on anyone’s schedule. As Your Survival Guy, my goal is to craft investment plans that may handle the hardest of times. Investors know about the Great Depression and other horrible markets, but they don’t always invest as if they do. There’s often an “it won’t happen to me” or “you only live once” attitude. I’m here to say it can happen, and one should prepare as if it will. The … [Read more...]
Human Nature: Looking at Today for Tomorrow’s Answers
Good morning, time travelers. It’s been a long time since we’ve seen rates this high. It’s human nature to look at today’s yield curve and have all the “answers” about how to invest for tomorrow. But you know Your Survival Guy isn’t in the interest rate prediction business. I look at what the markets are giving me and invest accordingly. The same is true with stocks, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average as a good proxy. There are plenty of bumps along the way, which is why I like a solid mix of blue-chip, dividend-paying stocks and laddered bonds. Action Line: Being a … [Read more...]
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