Since I don’t work, I probably follow the news more than the average bear. When you do that, you start to think you know more than most other people. Violating one of my own guidelines to buy index funds for the long-term and not play individual investments for the short-term, I bought $5K of the oil fund BNO a few weeks ago. Every few days … Continue reading A Lousy War Profiteer
I love watching rockets. I’ve been a space fan since I was a kid – watching the Apollo missions and the development of the Space Shuttles. I frequently drive from our place in Celebration FL to the Space Coast to watch launches. It’s about an hour each way for only a few minutes of excitement. I was there in April for the Artemis II moonshot. … Continue reading Seeing Stars in SpaceX?
The economy is either strong, or very weak, it seems. Like many things in America, it just depends on your political perspective. According to Gallup, Republicans are +22 points positive about the economy, while Democrats are -80 points negative. If you go back to Biden’s time in office the viewpoints were switched almost perfectly. In Trump’s first term they were flipped again. I consider myself … Continue reading How’s The Economy? It Depends …
When I left the office 10 years ago this month, I never could have imagined the incredible good fortune our equity investments would benefit from over the full decade of our early retirement. As you can see below, S&P 500 returns over that period of time have average a hefty 14.1% with dividends reinvested! Our portfolio also includes bonds, real estate, and cash – but … Continue reading Cheers to 10 Years of Good Fortune
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 …
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