Adam M. Grossman

ONE OF THE MARKET’S worst-performing stocks over the past year was, not long ago, one of its best. Novo Nordisk is the Danish company that pioneered the hugely popular weight-loss drug Wegovy, also known as Ozempic. After it hit the market in 2021, the company’s stock rallied, tripling over the following three years. Since then, however, things have been far more challenging. Over the past 12 months, the stock has dropped 60%.
This highlights a key challenge for investors: On the one hand,

EARLIER THIS SUMMER, Congress passed the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins Act—GENIUS, for short. This sounds obscure, but it’s a story worth following. The GENIUS Act’s purpose is to promote the growth of—and to regulate—a new type of financial instrument known as a stablecoin.
What’s a stablecoin? It’s similar to a cryptocurrency but differs in one important way: Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have exhibited wide price swings. That makes them interesting to investors but less-than-useful as currencies for everyday transactions.

IN THE ANCIENT WORLD, before the invention of the printing press, the most common way to retain information was to build what’s known as a memory palace. The idea was to link words to images, because images are easier to remember.
I’ve found that this strategy works well in personal finance, and earlier this year I described some of the images that I rely on most. Below are several more.
1. Back in 2011,

STOCK MARKET Investing requires a near superhuman ability to withstand pain. That’s the conclusion of a recent report by investment researcher Michael Mauboussin.
Mauboussin surveyed all stocks trading on U.S. exchanges over a 40-year period, between 1985 and 2024. He found that the median stock experienced a decline of 85% at one point or another. Worse yet, more than half of these stocks never fully recouped their losses. The median stock recovered to just 90% of its prior high-water mark.

A PLANE’S ALTIMETER measures the airplane’s altitude. It’s a critical instrument—so important, in fact, that planes are typically outfitted with two. That’s for redundancy, in case one fails. In addition, because different altimeters work better in different conditions, the two readings offer pilots multiple points of reference.
I was speaking recently with a retired pilot, who explained this to me and asked how he could apply the notion of redundancy to his finances. It was a good question,

OVER THE JULY FOURTH weekend, a friend asked me what I thought about the new financial instrument known as a “stock token.” Developed by the online broker Robinhood, a stock token is designed for investors to buy stakes in private companies such as OpenAI, creator of ChatGPT. It’s a novel concept because private company investments are typically inaccessible to individual investors.
Despite the appeal, I urged caution. Why? These tokens may not perform as expected because they aren’t the same as actual equity in a company.

ON DEC. 31, 1759, Arthur Guinness signed a lease to take over a defunct brewery in Dublin. What was unusual was the lease’s term: 9,000 years.
It didn’t take long before Guinness and his landlord both realized they’d made a mistake and agreed to end the lease. Guinness needed more space, and the landlord realized he’d neglected to account for inflation. The rent was fixed at £45 annually for the entire 9,000 years.
The Guinness case is notable because it’s so extreme,

IN A RECENT INTERVIEW, Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, a leader in artificial intelligence, grabbed headlines. Amodei argued that the next generation of AI systems could replace half of entry-level jobs and drive up the unemployment rate to 20%. All of this could occur in the next five years, he said.
Recent data seem to support these glum predictions. Mark Zuckerberg said AI will be as capable as a mid-level programmer by the end of this year.

AT THE 2016 SUMMER Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, South Africa’s Chad Le Clos challenged Michael Phelps for the gold medal in the 200-meter butterfly. A famous image emerged from that event: Throughout the semifinal, Le Clos repeatedly looked over at Phelps as he struggled to keep up. Meanwhile, Phelps just kept looking forward. The result: Phelps ultimately won the gold, while Le Clos trailed in fourth place.
I believe there’s a parallel between what we saw in that race and what we see in the investment world.

STATISTICIAN GEORGE E.P. Box once made this observation: “All models are wrong,” he said, “but some are useful.” This certainly applies to finance, where many of the concepts are imperfect but can nonetheless still be useful. Below are four such examples.
Market valuation. Are stocks overpriced? It’s a question without an easy answer. Even academics who have studied the topic can never be entirely sure. Consider the cyclically adjusted price-earnings (CAPE) ratio.

LAST WEEK, I MENTIONED the 17th century Dutch tulip bubble. There’s a lot we can learn from history. Current events, however, can teach us just as much. Below are three valuable lessons I see in today’s market.
Myopia. Open any finance textbook, and you’ll find that most of its ideas are built on the notion of “present value.” This simply means an investment should be worth the sum of its future cash flows.

BITCOIN HIT A NEW high last week, topping $112,000. Over the past 12 months, it’s climbed an impressive 55%.
What’s driving this gain, and what should you make of it? I believe there are three key factors. Two are new. One is not.
The first factor was a policy change last year. The federal government approved the launch of new exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that offer easier and more direct access to bitcoin. Following this rule change,

IF THE NAME LIZ TRUSS sounds vaguely familiar, there’s a reason: Truss was once the prime minister of the U.K.—but for just 45 days.
How did Truss lose public confidence so quickly? The bond market forced her out. Shortly after taking office in the fall of 2022, Truss proposed substantial tax cuts for both corporations and individuals. That would have been a popular move, except that her budget didn’t include any offsetting spending cuts.

WHEN HUMBLEDOLLAR’S editor was The Wall Street Journal’s longtime personal-finance columnist and his children were little, he often joked that he had a special incentive to see them succeed financially.
“It would be a tad embarrassing,” Jonathan wrote, if his children “grew up to be financial ne’er-do-wells.” For that reason, he used his own home as a laboratory of sorts, testing strategies to help set his children on the right financial path.

IT’S BEEN QUITE A YEAR for gold investors. While the stock market has struggled, gold hit a new all-time high, topping $3,500 per ounce just a few weeks ago.  Year-to-date, gold has gained nearly 30%, while the S&P 500 is in negative territory. This has certainly grabbed people’s attention—but does gold make sense for your portfolio?
To answer this question, let’s start by looking at the arguments favoring gold. Supporters typically point to two key attributes,