Adam M. Grossman

LISTEN TO THE financial news, and you’ll often hear reference to “the VIX.” But what exactly is the VIX, and how important is it?
The VIX index is intended to be a measure of investor sentiment. For that reason, it’s often referred to as the market’s “fear gauge.” How can investor sentiment be measured? While the math is complex, it’s based on a straightforward principle: When investors get nervous, they look for ways to protect their portfolios and are sometimes even willing to pay for that protection.

ACCORDING TO THE World Happiness Report, Finland ranks as the happiest nation in the world, a title it’s held for eight years in a row.
Each time this report is updated, it makes the news for a day or two but then fades. That’s for good reason, I think. As much as Finland might be a nice place, it isn’t necessarily practical to suggest that anyone pick up and move.
The good news, though,

IN THE EARLY 1950S, journalist Walter Winchell popularized the term “frienemies” when he used it to describe the fraying relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union. Today, we’re seeing a similar dynamic in our relationship with China. This makes it an important topic for investors. 
Not long ago, the relationship between the U.S. and China was strong and mutually beneficial. Over the past 25 years, trade between the two countries has multiplied.

WHAT WAS THE road to outstanding investment performance in 2025? For the first time in a long time, it wasn’t Apple, Amazon or Nvidia. It was gold. Delivering its best performance in 45 years, gold rose nearly 65%. Despite these impressive gains, however, I still don’t see gold as a great investment. 
Why not?
The most fundamental problem, in my view, is that gold lacks intrinsic value. Unlike traditional investments such as stocks, bonds and real estate,

LOOKING TO UPDATE your financial plan for 2026? Below are ten strategies you might consider:
Gaining control
January is a good time to audit your investments. I’d start with this very basic step: If you have accounts at multiple brokerage firms, see if you can consolidate them. This won’t necessarily lead to better investment results, but if you have fewer accounts, it’ll be easier to monitor and to manage them. This might not seem like an important exercise,

IN THE WORLD of personal finance, some topics are serious—and others less so. Since it’s the holiday season, it seems appropriate to look back at some of the year’s less weighty stories.
Early delivery. The year started off on a positive note for an Alabama couple. Sha’Nya Bennett was in labor and on her way to the hospital when a snow squall rolled in, forcing her to pull over. The expecting mom ended up delivering in her car,

LOOKING FORWARD TO some downtime over the holidays? Below are some favorite new personal finance books and articles to consider for your reading list.
A Richer Retirement by William Bengen – Back in the 1990s, financial planner William Bengen developed what’s come to be known as the 4% rule. It’s a framework to help retirees determine a sustainable portfolio withdrawal rate. This year, Bengen updated and expanded his research. The most compelling addition: Bengen addresses the question of asset allocation.

EARLIER THIS WEEK, the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee met and decided to lower interest rates by a quarter-point. This immediately sparked a war of words.
At a press conference, Fed chair Jerome Powell took a swipe at the White House, blaming the president’s new tariff policies for an uptick in inflation.
President Trump wasted no time in responding. All year, he has been lobbying Fed officials to move rates lower. And while they have been taking steps in that direction,

CRITICS OF INDEX FUNDS are pursuing a new line of attack. Passive investing, they argue, is distorting market prices and creating an unhealthy bubble.
To be sure, the market today is expensive. The price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of the S&P 500 stands at about 22. That’s substantially above its long-term average of about 16. Of more concern, that metric is approaching a level not seen since the market peak in 2000, just before stocks dropped 57%.

IN THE SUMMER of 1966, author John McPhee spent two weeks lying on a picnic table in his backyard. Why?
McPhee was suffering from writer’s block. As he described it, “I had assembled enough material to fill a silo, and now I had no idea what to do with it.”
Investors find themselves in a similar situation today. There’s no shortage of financial information around us. But that doesn’t make it easier to know what to do with it. 

FOR DECADES, RESEARCHERS have been looking at the link between money and happiness. The findings? In short, it’s a mixed bag.
To be sure, there are ways that money can boost happiness, and below are some ideas to consider. But there are also obstacles to contend with. We’ll look first at the obstacles before turning to the recommendations. 
The most significant challenge is the fact that—to a great extent—our happiness level is hard-wired into us.

IN APRIL 2005, art dealers Robert Simon and Alex Parish traveled to New Orleans to attend an auction. They were particularly interested in a work titled Salvator Mundi. The painting was in bad shape, having been neglected for years. But Simon and Parish ended up bidding on it and taking it home for $10,000.
After some restoration work, the pair succeeded in having it authenticated as a work of Leonardo da Vinci.

LAST WEEK, OPENAI founder Sam Altman sat down for an interview with venture capitalist Brad Gerstner and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. Both are investors in OpenAI, so it seemed like a friendly audience. But Gerstner posed a question that seemed to make Altman uncomfortable.
Since introducing ChatGPT three years ago, OpenAI has posted impressive growth, but Gerstner wondered whether the company was, nonetheless, getting ahead of itself.
“How can a company with $13 billion in revenues make $1.4 trillion of spend commitments?” Gerstner asked.

SOME NEWS STORIES are unusual in ways that it’s hard to know what to make of them. Such is the case with the recent collapse of a relatively unknown company called First Brands.
On the surface, it might seem like a mundane story. First Brands is an auto parts supplier, making commodity items like brake pads and windshield wipers. The company was founded in 2013 by a fellow named Patrick James, who built it up over the years by acquiring several other,

SOME YEARS AGO, the scientist Edward Fredkin identified a quirk of human behavior.
When it comes to making decisions, Fredkin found, we tend to allocate our time inefficiently. Suppose, for example, you’re at the grocery store, looking for something basic like paper towels. In a big supermarket, there might be a dozen or more choices. The result: Because there are so many options, it can be hard to choose among them. In the absence of big differences,