Dear Survivor, OK, Your Survival Guy just got back from a two- and half-week research trip in Paris. The six-hour head start in Paris-time compared to the east coast gave me plenty of time to gather my thoughts over a café crème and croissant. In a word, Paris is busy. But it’s not too crazy yet with the demanding Chinese customer still in lockdown. It feels like a soft open. Staffing shortages are rampant while customer demands are as high as ever, understandably acting like they’ve been locked up for a couple of years. But it’s all relative. Because when you spend nine of your nights … [Read more...]
Search Results for: Investing mistakes
RECESSION? Dow 25,000, $8 Gas, Rising Interest Rates, Spell Mid-term Crack Up
When you spend a lifetime working and saving where hours turn into days, weeks, months, and years; you probably have something to show for it. Days do feel like years in times like these. Time stands still. But not all is lost especially if you’re with me. Imagine my headline as we round the corner into the midterm elections. Who’s to blame for that? Who did that? Look, I’m Your Survival Guy. I’m Your Rich Man Poor Man and a Prudent Man to boot. I know from experience the pain of falling markets is much worse than the comfort of rising ones. That’s why I write to you daily about focusing on … [Read more...]
Survive and Thrive June 2022: “I’ve Been with Richard Young for Over 30 Years Now”
Dear Survivor, Are you up to speed with Your Survival Guy? Do you check in daily at www.yoursurvivalguy.com? I’m E.J. Smith, Your Survival Guy. I created www.yoursurvivalguy.com to give Main Street Americans a boots-on-the-ground look at how to protect their most valued assets from natural and manmade disasters. My focus at www.yoursurvivalguy.com is: Retirement investing and planning Fixed income/bond strategies Your Survival Guy’s Super States Living a Liberty Retirement Constitutional Carry States and Freedom Generational wealth strategies for … [Read more...]
DISASTER? Your Survival Guy’s Gas Stove is Broken
Happy first Monday of 2022. Your Survival Guy’s gas stove is broken. Not a great way to start the week. But the good news is there’s still natural gas. We have heat. This isn’t like the disaster a few years ago where we lost heat on the coldest day of the year due to a disaster with the supply of natural gas. This is a “me” problem (the best kind for you). A piece to our gas stove pilot is shot and needs replacing. Now, Your Survival Guy’s gas stove happens to be an AGA. You know those porcelain stoves in an English farmhouse with doors on the front, cooktops, and a chimney? That’s us. It’s … [Read more...]
BELICHICK BREAKDOWN: What Makes New England Patriots Coach So Good?
This is why Patriots coach Bill Belichick is so good. At Barstool Sports, Jerry Thornton analyzes Belichik's philosophy on sacks, writing: What's more important for a defense, sacks or pressure? BB breaks it down. pic.twitter.com/APDhAUZkn1 — New England Patriots (@Patriots) November 10, 2021 You think you've been following a guy long enough that you understand how he thinks. And in Bill Belichick's case, I do. More or less. But when there are so many gigabytes stored in his vast mental database and his algorithm doesn't reveal more than a few bytes at a time, he can still … [Read more...]
Your Survival Guy Presents to Prestigious Med School
Excerpts from my Wednesday presentation to recent grads and associates of an esteemed NYC med school: How to Invest and Create Wealth You’re asking me how to invest. Here’s what I recommend: Start early, participate in your company’s 401(k), reduce your debt, cut your spending, save ‘til it hurts, work as long as you can, and teach your family about money. That should get you started. Doesn’t sound like much fun? I know. But this does. Time Travel is Fun Imagine stepping into a time machine traveling into the future. You spent the day opening up your summer home in the Hamptons, on … [Read more...]
There’s Always a Way Forward for Americans Like YOU
How did you learn how to make money? In reviewing a package of financial documents with a prospective client last week, he included his social security estimates. It was like finding a piece of gold as far as I was concerned. Why? Because it showed me that he began working at age 16. I was able to see what he made of himself during a lifetime of work. It’s better than reading a best seller. I said to him, “It’s nice to see how much you’ve been able to save all these years, but what stands out the most is I see you started working when you were 16-years old.” He replied, “I guess that’s what … [Read more...]
You’re Telling Me about 8% and Pickleball
If you’re thinking about retirement or investing in some high yield real estate deal, don’t. Because as soon as you run a few scenarios grounded in reality and not “pie in the sky” dreams, you quickly realize losing income and principle are grave mistakes you don’t recover from, ever. In my conversations with investors, I hear it all. You wouldn’t believe some of the dividend yields I’m told are out there, ranging from eight to twenty percent. Good luck with that. When the government offers ten-year treasuries with an annual yield of 0.66%, it’s time for a reality check. “But,” you … [Read more...]
See the Truth About Who You Really Are as an Investor
You know how powerful the mind is—the power of mind over matter. That’s why I revisited this article in the New York Times: “Mind May Trump DNA in Exercise and Eating Habits:” If you tell people they have a genetic predisposition to a low capacity for exercise or a tendency to overeat, explains the article, their bodies respond accordingly. When it comes to investing, your mind makes you feel certain ways about the stock market which can lead to some big mistakes in your asset allocation. If you take the time to understand how you felt in brutal markets like those of 2000 and 2008, … [Read more...]
A Disaster to Remember
At Yoursurvivalguy.com, I regularly warn you away from the novel, the trendy, and the unproven strategies that keep the Wall Street fee-machine cranking. I want you to survive the investing gauntlet, not to be chewed up by schemers or inept profiteers looking to take your money. Risky hedge funds, cryptocurrencies, and unsavory pension fund strategies are all traps I have encouraged you to avoid. If you've been investing over the last decade you have surely heard of Bernie Madoff and his scheme to defraud investors. But if you have been investing for a bit longer like me, you'll remember a … [Read more...]
Is Vanguard too Big?
Personally, I have had only one minor administrative error recently with Vanguard where they incorrectly deposited SEP-IRA money into my traditional IRA. I called them to explain their error, they pulled up the letter of instruction, recognized their mistake and made the correction. Problem solved. With record inflows of more than $1 billion per day in 2017, or $369.3 billion, some investors are wondering if Vanguard’s success is a problem. I don’t think that’s the case. In a transaction oriented business there are always going to be mistakes. They can be corrected. When I worked at … [Read more...]
Your Retirement Life: Survival is Your Friend
“I was married for thirty years, with three children and a house to manage and doing lots of charity work. Then came the divorce…” a reader wrote to me. I called her up this week and we talked. Our conversation wasn’t about her divorce. In fact it only came up once. We talked more about the success of her family and the financial independence they have achieved. But as she tells it, when she talks with them about their childhood they tell her it wasn’t always the best. I asked her what she meant by that. She said, "We didn’t have a lot of extra money for expensive vacations.” She explained, … [Read more...]
Computers Beat Hedge Funds in Rout of Risk Takers
Hedge funders and traders made big mistakes around the Brexit (more on this here) referendum because they bet on the outcome they preferred, not the reality of the vote. Computer based trading strategies did quite well however, because they tuned out the emotion of vote and focused on actual market trends. The Wall Street Journal reports: Equity hedge funds fell 2.1% on Friday alone, according to data from Chicago-based Hedge Fund Research. The losers generally appear to have been hedge funds too heavily weighted toward cyclical stocks such as airlines or financial stocks that were hard hit … [Read more...]
3 Million Tax Army Zombies
Happy April 15th. Another dreadful tax filing is behind us. What an energy sapping, demoralizing process. You’re literally penalized for your success. “[F]ederal tax-code compliance overall consumes more than 6 billion hours of time each year, which is like having a “tax army” of 3 million people just filling out tax returns year-round,” writes my friend Chris Edwards, the director of tax policy studies at the Cato Institute. Edwards continues: The problem is getting worse. Federal tax rules span about 75,000 pages today, which is three times more than when President Jimmy Carter called the … [Read more...]