Dear Mr. Market:
Normally we write you letters about the markets or the economy…but what’s all that worth if your assets are not protected or properly positioned for what you intended them to do? The following article is penned by a guest author and Long Beach estate planner, Curtis Kaiser. At the end of the article you’ll see his firm bio and a link to his company page. Enjoy!
Read more: AB Trusts – Do You Need to Get Rid of Yours? Continue readingDear Mr. Market:
Budgeting apps play a vital role in helping us keep track of our spending, save for future goals, and maintain control over our financial health. With the retirement of Mint, many are left wondering which tool to turn to next to stay on top of their financial game. The sun has set on Mint, and for many of us, it feels like a beloved companion has gone away. But fear not, for where one app leaves, others rise to the occasion. That may actually be part of the problem since like anything on the internet there’s almost too much information, choices, and places pitching you things.
Today, we dive into six promising alternatives: YNAB (You Need A Budget), PocketGuard, EveryDollar, Goodbudget, Honeydue, and NerdWallet. Each brings something unique to the table, and it’s worth exploring what makes them shine and where they might fall short. One quick caveat before we dive in…Unlike so many articles and product reviews on the internet, we have embedded links to each of of the budgeting apps but do not get paid to promote any one of them. (Please do you your own due diligence!).
Read more: Farewell Mint: Top Budgeting Apps to Try Now Continue readingDear Mr. Market:
Ah, Mr. Market, you’ve never been one for subtlety, have you? We’ve all grown accustomed to your erratic behavior, but these past few weeks, you’ve outdone yourself. The dizzying heights we’ve climbed recently have turned into a sharp, gut-wrenching descent. It’s like we were steadily walking up the stairs, only to realize we were stepping into an elevator shaft, and now gravity is having its way with us.
The Stairs Up: Slow, Steady, and Full of Hope
For the past year, we’ve been witnessing a remarkable climb in the market. Fueled by optimism, the scent of economic recovery was in the air. Tech stocks were soaring, companies were beating earnings expectations, and the Fed’s steady (or perhaps stubborn) hand reassured us that we were on fairly solid ground. Like the patient climb of a seasoned mountaineer, each step forward felt measured, deliberate. Investors were content, seeing their portfolios grow incrementally with each passing day.
Read more: Up the Stairs, Down the Shaft: The Tale of a Tumbling Market Continue readingDear Mr. Market:
If your alma mater or favorite college team did not make the tournament on Selection Sunday, we’ve got another option for you!
Even if you don’t like or follow college basketball, we think you’ll enjoy what we pioneered and have put together.
My Portfolio Guide, LLC was the first investment firm to publish a March Madness investing bracket where we share our picks and match them up against each other. We break down and assign each of the four “regions” with an asset class and then pick teams (stocks) that we think have the best chance at doing well relative to others.
Not only is this “exercise” a way for us to share our ideas from a macro perspective, but it offers a fun platform to dig into a couple specific investments and themes we are following or excited about in the year ahead.
Click here or below to see or enlarge the entire bracket for 2024.
Our Final Four Investing Bracket slots 48 positions against each other and we mainly want to show why we see one investment doing better than another over the course of the next year. One caveat to keep in mind is that while there are 48 total investments within our bracket, it does not mean we like them all; some are there for illustrative purposes or to discuss a certain theme playing out in the stock market. Lastly, the way these are initially “seeded” does not reflect our current confidence in them. For example, a #1 seeded investment could lose right out of the gate just as a #12 could potentially win it all. In other words, these investments (or “teams”) are ranked and seeded on a number of factors but one of the main drivers is how hot they recently performed within the past few months or recent year.
Continue readingDear Mr. Market:
If you’re watching an NBA basketball game and you have one player to take a final shot to win the game, who do you choose? Like him or not the guy who has scored the second most points in the history of basketball is LeBron James and he has made 50.5% of all shots he’s ever taken. Let’s switch sports to much worse odds, like baseball, where the average hitter is around .250 for a batting average. Even the best the game has ever seen was the great Ty Cobb who hit .366 for his career. Speaking of winning or losing, the mecca of odds making is in Las Vegas of course, and if you’re ever interested in losing money, just know that on average you can come out with a winning blackjack hand only 42.4% of the time.
New year, fresh canvas, but pretty much the same problems….So what are the odds of the market going up, down, or sideways in 2024?
Read more: Bulls, Bears, and Ballots: Election Years & the Stock Market Continue readingDear Mr. Market:
Can you imagine how you would be feeling if you had acted upon the advice from all the doom and gloomers the past year? How some of these financial “gurus” and economic pundits still have an audience is fascinating!?! Want to know why they still have a platform and hold many people’s attention?
Fear sells.
That’s it. Nothing more, nothing less. Normally we don’t run victory laps or spend any time patting ourselves on the back, but this year we’re going to be blunt. We’re going to remind people that if you listened to everyone and followed all the fearmongers your portfolio would be sitting in cash and you would have missed one of the better and least expected positive years ever. We’re not running around with rose colored glasses but if you listened and followed the steady hand of My Portfolio Guide, LLC this past year instead, you’re in a very decent spot and hopefully learned something for when (not if) this happens again.
The stock market WILL go down again…but it will also always eventually finish higher. Sure, 2022 was a dismal and quite frankly unprecedented rough year, and couple that with all the worrisome headlines of massive debt, inverted yield curves, geo-political issues etc., you would naturally be influenced to run for the hills. We were crystal clear that we thought, albeit not a popular opinion, this year would finish positive and we would see a strong Q4. We’ve held onto this stance even through a very negative late summer (August through October) where the market pulled back considerably.
Continue readingDear Mr. Market:
In the world of finance and investing, the passing of a visionary figure leaves an indelible mark on the landscape they helped shape. Today, we bid farewell to an icon, a man whose wisdom and wit transcended the realms of business and life itself. Charlie Munger, the renowned investor, philanthropist, right hand man of Warren Buffett and Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, passed away today, but his legacy endures through the profound insights he shared with the world.
Charlie Munger was a man who not only navigated the complexities of the financial world but also imparted invaluable lessons on success, rationality, and the pursuit of knowledge. Join us as we explore the essence of Charlie Munger’s wisdom through ten of our favorite quotes he shared over his 99 years of life:
Read more: RIP Charlie Munger : Farewell to an Icon of Investing Continue readingDear Mr. Market:
The stock market is made up of thousands of choices and one easy way to gain exposure to it is via mutual funds. While we don’t want to broad brush the topic, we’re going to get right into it and explain 100 reasons why you or your financial advisor should not be using mutual funds versus ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds).
Continue readingDear Mr. Market:
The past two months in the stock market have been treacherous and truly tested the average investor’s nerves. Most of us are close to being “fed up” with the headlines, inflation, political division and ensuing market volatility. Before we get into the headline of the day, let’s quickly touch on the operative word, “Fed” and how completely wrong the Federal Reserve has been at just about every turn. The following timeline comes from The Kobeissi Letter, an industry leading commentary on the global capital markets:
Read more: Fed up Continue reading
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Dear Mr. Market: 