In an uncertain world, essential jobs have never been more necessary. In an excellent interview, Reason magazine asks former Dirty Jobs host Mike Rowe about how society has made "work the enemy." Here's a short quote from the interview: Mike Rowe is best known for his stint hosting the Discovery Channel's longrunning Dirty Jobs, where he performed the sort of work we all rely on but don't want to think about too much, from cleaning septic tanks to putting hot tar on roofs to disposing of medical waste. Rowe frequently talks about the value of the hard work that's too often dismissed by a … [Read more...]
Investing in Bonds Is a Lot Like High School
One of the virtues of constructing a bond ladder, where you own the bonds outright, is that you’re not confined to a mutual fund and/or ETF where the emotions of the group can rule the roost. When you invest with groups, you become a groupie. If they panic and sell, that forces the fund manager to sell what you might feel are good positions simply to raise cash for those exiting the building. You don’t have a choice in the matter. When it comes to bond ladders, you also have direct control over timing. In other words, as bonds come due, you can decide whether it’s time to change course … [Read more...]
“Survival Guy, Getting Old is More Expensive Than…”
Your margin of safety, a habit of my fairly wealthy investor, is easy to say yet hard to do. Like most things in life worth doing, it takes a certain mindset, it takes commitment. It is not intuitive, far from it. On social media, we’re blasted with the false hope of easy living. “Play the market,” they say. Then, you look at the disasters with crypto or memes stocks, for example, and it’s a rat’s nest of trades gone bad. Life isn’t easy. And it gets harder. As my father-in-law Dick Young reminds me, “Survival Guy getting old isn’t for the faint of heart, and it’s expensive. More … [Read more...]
Friends Are You Living Like The Intelligent Investor?
In the mind of Ben Graham, author of The Intelligent Investor, and teacher of star pupil Warren Buffett, his thinking was to build a margin of safety into a portfolio. In addition, Buffett recalls that Graham taught that it was OK to go against the grain and avoid the crowds. And that being well-rounded in life was good for your body and soul. As my father-in-law Dick Young says, investing is more art than science. And finally, live a life of generosity—that does not necessarily mean with money, but with your time. In The Intelligent Investor, Graham wrote, “In the old legend the wise men … [Read more...]
Investing Habits of the Fairly Wealthy: #8 “Safety”
“History repeats.” “It’s different this time.” “Real estate always goes up.” “I’m a long-term investor.” “I’m a contrarian.” I remember “It’s different this time,” back in the late 90s when investors were partying in tech stocks like Prince’s song “1999.” Then the tech bust happened, and serious money was lost, never to be seen again. “Real estate always goes up” was true right up until the financial crises in 2008, and once again, money was lost, never to be seen again. I could go on. And I will. “I’m a long-term investor,” I hear more than I care to admit. Then … [Read more...]
Keep Other People’s Politics Away from Your Money
Keep other people’s politics away from your money. Your Survival Guy favors the selection and ownership of individual stocks to avoid the ESG crowd. In The Wall Street Journal, Matt Cole and Jeff Sherman discuss what they call "the charities hiding in your 401(k), writing: Environmental, social and governance investing is like the wrinkle in the rug; stomp it down and you shift the problem somewhere else. As investors and lawmakers push against ESG’s presence in portfolios, it is infiltrating index funds wearing a new disguise: the public-benefit corporation, or PBC. Unlike a standard … [Read more...]
“Stocks Always Come Back,” They Say
“Stocks always come back,” they say. “Just look at the history of the markets.” OK, thinks Your Survival Guy. Let's. Take a look at how markets did from 1965 through the 70’s, a time not unlike today, where inflation soared, the country was in decline, and stocks did basically nothing good. That’s a long time for markets to do nothing—a good chunk of retirement for those who were retired. That’s why building a margin of safety is so important for the retired investor. You need to have a line of defense in case stocks don’t save the day. You need to understand risk and … [Read more...]
The Suffering of Leveraged Muni Funds
Your Survival Guy does not like municipal bonds and despises leverage. Both forces are at work here as closed-end munis that use borrowed money get hit hard. Heather Gillers reports in The Wall Street Journal: Some municipal-bond funds are suffering their worst stretch since the 2008-09 financial crisis, an acute example of how two years of rising interest rates have slammed investors’ portfolios. Closed-end municipal-bond funds have been particularly hard-hit because they often use borrowed money to invest in fixed-rate, long-term bonds sold by state and local governments. The … [Read more...]
“No Pain, No Gain,” They Chant
What we’re seeing in markets is a repricing of risk—an often misunderstood four-letter word until it hits one’s portfolio. Risk is not a word Your Survival Guy even likes using because it implies dangerous stuff could happen. Risk control is more my speed. Your Survival Guy’s risk tolerance is most likely lower than that of most investors (and they might outperform), but I’m okay with that. The rah, rah, rah of the crypto bros, the look-at-me crowd, and the cocktail party big shots chant “No pain, no gain” in an upward-moving market. Then they wake up one morning and see the real … [Read more...]
Fixed Income Investing Today: A Generational Buying Opportunity
Look, sometimes life just goes your way. You wake up one morning and see interest rates you can sink your teeth into. It’s been years of zero-percent drudgery. Somehow, we got through it, and for many of you, your patience paid off. Today, dear fixed-income investors, you have a cornucopia of products paying yields one could only dream of not too long ago. How about those of us holding onto fixed-income positions purchased through the drought years that began after the financial crisis? You know what? If you have a diversified portfolio with laddered maturities, you might be pleasantly … [Read more...]
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