Our neighborhood investment club decided to have a friendly competition on “best investment” for the next 12 months. We were each assigned to come up with a publicly available investment and track the returns starting 2/2/26 thru 2/1/27. Whoever delivers the best return (including dividends, Klaus) has neighborhood bragging rights. I am typically a conservative, index fund investor, so this is a pretty different challenge … Continue reading Silver & Gold
Since we’ve been chatting about 2025 investment returns, I thought I’d share this article about Dave Ramsey advocating an 8% “safe withdrawal rate” (SWR) for retirees. I generally think Ramsey is a pretty sensible guy – encouraging people to get out of debt, invest in index funds, and build generational wealth. Still, the idea of an 8% SWR seems more than a bit wild to … Continue reading How High Can You Spend?
Frequent contributor, Klaus Wentzel, mentioned that his dividend-driven portfolio was roughly +8.5% in 2025, after netting out the year’s living expenses. I’m watching the Sugar Bowl right now, so I thought I would add up how our portfolio ended the year. For benchmark’s sake, the S&P 500 was +16.6% (x-dividends) and the bond market (VBMFX) was +3.0%. We finished the year with a pleasing +14.3% … Continue reading Terrific 2025 Returns
Wednesday is the last day of 2025, so I thought it was a perfect time to assess the “expert” predictions from New Year’s Eve last year. I looked up a bunch of predictions at the time, and at the end of the year, only 6 of the 14 have been resolved positively. 8 of the predictions were worse that expected. The immediate economy looks like … Continue reading New Years Predictions Assessed
The 2025 stock market has been a case study in “follow the bouncing ball”. We were up (inauguration), down (“liberation day”), way up (tariff pause & lower interest rates), and now not up as much (China issues). The volatility with Trump isn’t unexpected given his history, but it has been quite a financial ride in 2025. When we returned for the first time in 6 … Continue reading Follow The Bouncing Ball
Happy Independence Day Weekend! We’ll be up at my brother’s lake place this weekend, so I thought I’d shoot out an early post before the festivities begin. While we’re out enjoying brats on the grill, boats on the water, and fireworks in the sky, our Congress will be wrestling with getting a reconciled budget passed in Washington DC. I’m sure the fact that it is … Continue reading Happy InDEBTpendence Day …
It’s good to see the stock market trending up after the chaos of the initial Trump tariff actions this year. The S&P 500 today sits up +2.6% from where it started the year. Still, I’m not quite sure how to read my portfolio. The bond side of our holdings are flat, but the US Dollar – which all of these investments are enumerated in – … Continue reading Investment Returns vs Dollar Strength
A few readers / friends sent me this cheeky t-shirt image, celebrating the stock market’s quick bounce-back from the Trump tariffs. Folks thought I was too negative about Trump’s move to correct long-standing “trade imbalances” – even though my official investor position was to “stay the course”. Related: Stay The Course Still, I thought it was important to acknowledge that the S&P 500 has quickly … Continue reading Trump Tariff Bounceback
The stock market was relatively flat over the last week with investors still try to puzzle their way through the Trump/GOP approach to tariffs, taxes, debt, and new statements on inflation & interest rates from the Fed. Our neighborhood investor club members were as puzzled as anyone when we met for the last meeting of the Spring. Everyone had their own take on what was … Continue reading Crystal Ball Predictions: Investor Club Input
Even before Trump “paused” his questionable trade policy yesterday, Wall Street analysts offered updated projections for where they thought the stock market would finish up the year. The S&P 500 started the year at 5,869 and had dipped below 5,000 (-15%) after Trump’s 10% minimum tariff and demand for balancing trade deficits. Still, most investment banks were quite positive in their forecasts for where the … Continue reading Crystal Ball Predictions
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