investing

Today’s post was inspired by the excellent book: Team of Teams, by Gen. McChrystal Modern destroyers use gas turbine engines for propulsion and electrical power. As a young junior officer, I was required to learn all about these marvelous...

Rob’s Thoughts on Inflation: For my entire 30-year professional career, inflation has never been a factor. I have endured five bear markets, yet the peril of high inflation has not been a consideration for my clients ever until this year....

In our recent semi-annual reviews with clients, it has become almost routine for us to look at portfolio returns together and say, “That looks great!” Well, last week was not so great. The market corrected, and there was nowhere to hide. Didn’t...

The fourth quarter of 2021 did not break stride from the rest of this year. The jobs reports continued to come out extremely strong; corporate earnings did the same. As the last quarter of the year wrapped up, we are now officially below the...

Some years back, my two younger kids expressed an interest in investing. Admittedly, I botched their initial entry into the finance world. The recent acceleration of stock trading by new investors fueled by online message boards parallels the...

Two weeks ago, I got a call from one of my clients. He owns almost 40,000 shares in an unknown local technology company that he bought from the founder many years ago. He paid around $20,000 for it at the time. The stock trades on...

“What’s one thing you wish you knew about investing when you were 20?” I was asked this question as a guest on a recent podcast. My answer? “I wish I knew how phenomenally well Apple stock was going to do because I owned it when I...

Check out this fun excerpt from my latest book for your reading enjoyment. I used to tell this story to 401(k) participants in enrollment meetings. It’s a real conversation I had with my dad in our garage in 1978! What do you think?

 

Answer: Maybe not the account you think! This is a pretty common conversation that we have with clients. Here is a handy chart outlining the different options and their tax treatment: Tax Deferred – Pay it Later Tax deferred...

The first time I reviewed and worked with a nice bond retirement portfolio it was my grandparents investment account. In the mid to late 90’s I found myself driving down to Temple Texas once a week to help them out with medical and...

Many of the conversations I’ve had recently about the stock market have revolved around the question “why” as in, “why is the NASDAQ hitting record highs in the middle of a pandemic?” “Why is Tesla up so much?” It’s a natural...

In this video, Austin and I talk about Equity Indexed Annuities. We’ve been analyzing quite a few of these lately and there are two major takeaways: They are complicated. They provide a guaranteed income...

For almost everyone in investing, there are two main risks: 1. The Risk of Losing Money  2. The Risk of Losing the Opportunity to Make Money  Of these two risks, we can choose to eliminate one or the...

In the last four weeks something near the number of 26 million Americans have filed for unemployment. That is a crazy high number that has led to some eye popping GDP expectations for the quarter. Some reports expecting something...

Over the past month, many different areas of the US economy have come to an almost full stop. This as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak, and subsequent reaction of government officials ordering people to stay home. To keep people and businesses...

*4/23/20 Update: EIDL and PPP EIDL and PPP checks are flowing. Remember, the EIDL check you receive is a tax-free grant. Make sure you annotate clearly on your books as something like EIDL – Other Income so your accountant can exclude it from...

It’s been over a decade now, and time softens even my most dramatic memories. I was in Chicago for the launch of an intensive year-long coaching program for advisors. My career up to that point had been successful but not focused. This program...

There was a major selloff in the stock market this week as investors processed information about the coronavirus. As we discussed these events, Austin and I inadvertently found ourselves talking in terms of what we thought could happen next....

There is a new sleeve of our portfolios that we are becoming more and more helpful. Adding to the traditional stock and bond mix, we are using Defined Outcome ETFs. Defined Outcome ETFs are buffered investments around different indexes that...

I don’t like index annuities, and I especially dislike variable annuities with complicated riders that supposedly promise you’ll never lose money. With these products, you get lots of smoke and mirrors, high fees, surrender charges, very little...

To help curb much of the anxiety and uneasy feelings of financial markets today, we can take a lesson from Mark Cuban on protecting our invested assets. In 1999 Cuban sold Broadcast.com to Yahoo! in a deal valued at $5.7 billion dollars. As part...

Thoughts on Bonds Bonds are a crazy animal. With interest rates trending down bond funds look fantastic, yielding much higher returns than you would normally expect. But the only reason they are higher in value is because interest rates are...

Most people trust their financial advisor. Problem is, most advisors should not be trusted. I know that’s a strong statement, but after spending over twenty years in this industry, I know it’s true. I review investment portfolios all of the...

My sophomore year at The University of Texas, I had a marketing class in the UTC, an annex to the business school, tucked right next to the Perry Castaneda Library, known on campus as the PCL. I remember walking to class past the huge PCL, with...