It has been an interesting year for cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin just topped its all-time high this week at almost $20,000 – up 1.6x from last year at this time. The private, all-digital currency still has its skeptics, but it is getting broader acceptance among financial services companies and institutional investors. The pandemic may be remembered as Bitcoin’s coming of age. I wondered back in April if … Continue reading Bitcoin’s Coming Of Age?
Is there anyone more interesting & successful in the business world right now than Elon Musk? Really – I am in awe of this guy and all he is accomplishing. The sad thing, is that I bet ‘against’ him three years ago and can’t believe how wrong I was. For those of you who haven’t been paying attention, Musk is flipping 4 entire industries on … Continue reading The Worst Stock Bet I Ever Made
Late at night on Halloween a notification came through on my watch that didn’t make sense: a PayPal billing alert. It said that I had a charge from eBay for $71. I buy a lot of things oddball things on eBay, but I couldn’t recall anything quite that expensive. When I looked, I saw a I had paid a recurring fee to eBay for 5 … Continue reading Paying Attention?
With the Presidential election this week, I thought I would do a quick portfolio check to see where our retirement portfolio is sitting before the markets react. It seems a big enough change-point, that I would keep track of where we are at – at this moment in time. The good news is that despite the pandemic sell-off in March, we’ve weathered the 2020 storm(s) … Continue reading Election 2020 – Where Are We At?
If you’re not familiar with the name Bill Bengen, you probably are familiar with his work. Back in 1994, he published his Trinity Study suggesting that a 4% withdrawal rate of retirement savings would be ‘safe’ for most retirees, based on historical financial returns. Bengen – now long retired himself – has been in the news updating his thoughts on the ‘4% Rule’, as he … Continue reading Optimistic Update To The 4% Rule
I read through a good online discussion of retirement spending/investment probabilities this weekend. Someone was asking early retirees in a forum if they felt a 90% probability of out-living your retirement nest egg was enough, based on a online calculator like FIREcalc. I’ve written about FIREcalc probabilities before and using Monte Carlo analysis to help pressure test your FIRE plan. It is a great tool. … Continue reading Is 90% ‘Good Enough’ Odds?
I recently listened to an interesting podcast with investor Peter Schiff of Euro-Pacific Capital. He’s the guy that earned the title ‘Dr. Doom’ when he correctly forecast the housing bubble that led to the Great Recession. He wrote a book about it two years before it happened. Schiff – a self-described libertarian capitalist – did a 3 hour interview with Joe Rogan recently. He raised … Continue reading Bubble Economy?
I love cars, but I hate car dealers. Unfortunately, it seems that over-engineered, unreliable electronics are making us more reliant on dealer service than ever. That makes cars more costly than ever. Related: Sports Cars: ‘Every Day This Man Takes A Vacation’ Our sports car recently suffered a blow to its stereo/navigation system. I stopped at the grocery store a couple miles from our house … Continue reading Taken To The Cleaners – Dealer Service
People make investments out of many things that they enjoy as hobbies – classic cars, antique watches, sports memorabilia, and other collectibles. I have a lot of collections of things, but I’ve never viewed any of them that way. One of the biggest collections we have is LEGO models & sets. I have many sets from when I was a kid and we’ve bought & … Continue reading Colorful, Collectible Bricks
During the Democratic National Convention two weeks ago, news slipped out that Joe Biden was developing a new tax plan that would rollback benefits for 401K plans. He even had his Economic Advisor speak to it at a panel event at the convention. Like many ‘progressive’ initiatives, this one involves reducing or eliminating 401K tax benefits from higher income households and transferring that benefit to … Continue reading Keeping Up With Election Proposals – Taxing 401Ks
