Jonathan Clements

IF YOU WANT intellectual investment stimulation, you’d be hard pressed to do better than ResearchAffiliates.com, the site for Rob Arnott’s money management firm. Rob is one of the smartest guys I’ve met during my three decades bouncing around the financial world. Over the years, he’s offered intriguing insights on topics such as tax management, share dilution and indexing.
Are you confident U.S. stocks will continue to shine? Check out Research Affiliates’ 10-year expected returns.

A READER FROM Europe writes, “In your book, How to Think About Money, you suggest a U.S. investor might have 40% in U.S. stocks and 20% in non-U.S. stocks [plus 40% in U.S. bonds]. I understand that this tilt toward U.S. stocks reflects the fact that U.S. readers should keep most of their portfolio in dollar-denominated investments to avoid currency exchange risk. Since I live in Europe and I will retire in Euroland,

WANT TO GET YOUR finances headed in the right direction? Below are nine steps to take in the year ahead. With each step, I’ve included links to the relevant sections of HumbleDollar’s money guide.
1. Ask why. Before you start opening financial accounts and making trades, you need to figure out what you’re trying to achieve. “Not a problem,” you respond. You know what you want: A bigger house, a faster car, early retirement,

FINANCIAL MARKETS have two primary functions: They can allow us to grow wealthy over time—and they can drive us completely batty along the way. As you mull that mixed blessing, consider six additional thoughts:
1. Spreading our investment bets widely is prudent and betting everything on one stock is foolish. But over the short term, the prudent strategy can lose us money, while behaving foolishly can earn us handsome gains. The lesson: We shouldn’t judge a long-term investment strategy by its short-term results.

IN OUR 20s, WE TEND to be a confident lot: We figure we know what we want from our life, that the goal is to become rich, that money buys happiness and that we can beat the market.
The years that follow teach us otherwise. We discover that things we passionately wanted—a new job, a new house, admission to a particular college or club—don’t prove nearly as life transforming as we imagined. Most of us grow richer as we grow older,

IF WE COULD VIEW today from 10 years hence, our behavior—financial and otherwise—would be entirely different. We wouldn’t flail around so much in the muck of everyday life, fretting and fighting about nonsense. Instead, we’d focus more on issues that matter to our long-term wellbeing.
Problem is, it seems this sense of perspective can’t be taught by schools and colleges. Instead, it’s learned only through experience. It would be wonderful if we could be wise at age 20,

I RARELY MAKE significant changes to my portfolio, but I still love to watch the financial markets. They’re great theater—and, if you can resist the urge to trade, free entertainment. Here are five random observations from the cheap seats:
First, don’t let your political views guide your investment strategy. The stock market has rallied modestly since Trump’s election, horrifying Clinton supporters who fear for the country’s future. But remember, any time you swap stocks for bonds,

HOW MUCH ARE WE all worth? The Credit Suisse Research Institute recently published its 2016 Global Wealth Report, as well as the accompanying Global Wealth Databook. It’s a tricky undertaking, given the difficulty of getting accurate data, even for developed countries. Still, the results are intriguing:

U.S. families own 33.2% of the world’s $256 trillion net worth. This figure combines financial assets (think stocks and bonds) and real assets (principally housing), with household debts then subtracted.

MY DAYS ARE CONSUMED with a hodgepodge of activities—writing books, speeches, radio interviews, my newsletter, blogging and more. What ties all these activities together? More than anything, I want to be part of the conversation.
When I first entered the work world more than three decades ago, I imagined that—once my finances allowed—I would happily retire to a rural area and retreat from worldly hassles. But now that I can afford to retire, I’ve come to realize it’s the last thing I want: The quiet,

WHEN DECIDING whether it’s worth taking an investment risk, your starting point should be the so-called risk-free rate. That’s the return you can earn by taking little or no risk. Got your eye on an investment that might perform better? You need to decide whether the potential extra return, relative to the risk-free rate, is worth the added danger involved.
When experts talk about the risk-free rate, they usually point to some sort of Treasury security.

REAL ESTATE SEMINARS. Initial public stock offerings. International lotteries. Hedge funds. Franchising opportunities. Penny stocks. Multi-level marketing companies.
This is the American lexicon of easy wealth—and yet the only people who seem to end up rich are those who peddle this nonsense. It’s the story of the California gold rush: Riches accrued not to the miners, but to those who sold them shovels, picks, pans and other supplies.
To be sure, hollow promises and empty hype are rife in other areas of our life.

PORTFOLIO MANAGERS and financial advisors are apt to depict money management as rigorously analytical, and sometimes even as a science. Maybe that’s inevitable in an endeavor where almost every decision ends up with a number, whether it’s the amount of life insurance to buy, the percentage allocation to emerging markets or the age at which you should claim Social Security.
But just because the answer has precision doesn’t mean this is a precise business.

THE MARKET FOR intelligent financial writing is, alas, surprisingly small. Why? I believe there are three culprits.
First, many of us don’t care enough about our future selves. Sure, we care somewhat—but not so much that we’ll spend less today, let alone educate ourselves about how to prepare for retirement and other distant goals. Just check out the most popular personal-finance blogs. They focus on topics like coupons, credit cards and juggling debt. Most of us,

AROUND THIS TIME of year financial advisors and the media start talking about taking tax losses. The notion: You sell underwater investments in your taxable account, and then use those realized capital losses to offset realized capital gains and up to $3,000 in ordinary income.
There’s nothing wrong with taking tax losses, though I think the notion is oversold. Unless you’re an active trader or a really bad investor, you probably won’t have any losses to take.

WHAT’S THE STATE of your financial health? Forget your credit score, the past year’s handsome increase in your home’s value or how your salary compares to your brother-in-law’s. In the end, financial fitness comes down to two key numbers.
First, there’s your net worth, which is the value of your assets minus your debts. There’s some debate about what should be included. The easy answer: Don’t delude yourself by counting the value of your car,