LAST MONTH, The Wall Street Journal ran an article with a puzzling headline: “How China Pressured MSCI to Add Its Market to Major Benchmark.” Like a lot of market news, this arcane-sounding story came and went without much notice. But it’s worth pausing to understand what it was all about—and why it matters to you.
First, let’s decode the terminology in the article’s headline: A “benchmark” is another word for an index.

LOOKING TO BUILD an investment portfolio—or rethink the mix you already own? Check out HumbleDollar’s new portfolio-building guide.
The guide takes the most important advice from the site’s chapters on investing, markets and taxes, and turns it into nine simple steps that should help you build a sensible, low-cost portfolio of index funds. I’ve included step No. 1 below. If you like what you read, I encourage you to peruse the other eight steps.

WE ARE A NATION obsessed with youth sports. Time magazine says it’s a $15 billion-a-year industry. As many as 60 million kids participate.
Sports are good for kids for all kinds of reasons: promoting exercise and a healthy lifestyle, enhancing team work and relationships, providing structure, instilling confidence to overcome challenges and delivering the joy of playing.
During our children’s sports journeys, we parents are often led to believe that our little sports stars are on the path to the holy grail—a full athletic college scholarship.

THE LETTER WAS IN a mountain of mail delivered the day after my wife and I returned from holiday. “Dear David Powell, Thank you for your recent application for a Bed Bath & Beyond Mastercard account. Your request… was carefully considered, and we did not approve your application….”
I’ve never been happier to receive a rejection.
We use exactly one credit card, pay it off each month and have never applied for another. This fraudulent application,

AS SHARK TANK STAR Lori Greiner once said, “Entrepreneurs are the only people who will work 80 hours a week to avoid working 40 hours a week.”
Got the entrepreneurial itch? When I hear people say they have a great business idea, but don’t have the money to launch their business or quit their day job, my heart sinks. They’re missing the point: In today’s world, there are countless opportunities to start a business without any initial investment.

I’VE LATELY BEEN talking to Rachel about getting a dog. Not now, but sometime in the future. When Rachel retires, we’d like to do a lot of traveling and taking care of a dog would be difficult.  But when we slow down, I believe having a dog would improve our lives in our declining years.
How so? A few years ago, my neighbor, who is retired, told me she lost her husband. She said his passing was extremely painful.

YOU KNOW HOW certain things people say stick in your mind. Often, it’s a hurtful insult. But for me, the words I can’t forget are, “You’re wealthy.”
I live in a 90-year-old house on a small lot, my wife’s car is 12 years old, our television is 10 years old and the last time I bought a new suit was a dozen years ago. Okay, it’s true, I don’t wear suits very often these days.

SUPPOSE YOU WALKED into a restaurant and they handed you a menu without prices. Would you conclude that: (a) everything is free; or (b) something funny is going on?
I doubt anyone would choose the first option. It defies logic. Yet this is how the 401(k) industry routinely operates—and large numbers of people are falling for it. According to a 2018 survey by TD Ameritrade, 37% of 401(k) participants mistakenly believe that their 401(k) retirement plan is a free employee benefit—that it carries no fees.

MONEY MAY SEEM important—and it is. But it isn’t nearly as important as we imagine. Want a little perspective on your money? First, think about your net worth or how much you earn. Then ask yourself these eight questions. How much would you give:

To have your current life, but be 10 years younger?
To have a deceased friend or family member back in your life?
To avoid the parts of your job you dislike?

SEVERAL MILLION households every year deal with a crucial decision involving their teenage children. Will their kids head to college, enter the labor force, join the military or perhaps do something different entirely? Often, this involves weighing the costs and benefits of a college education vs. the immediate income from getting a job.
About two-thirds of high school graduates end up being college freshmen. The remaining third defer or never go to college, but they can still end up earning above-average incomes.

WE’VE ALL GOT STUFF. Too much stuff. George Carlin was among the first to highlight our obsession with stuff in his 1980s standup comedy routines. I hadn’t thought much about Carlin or stuff for decades—until 2015, when I inherited my parents’ stuff.
Not only did I inherit their stuff, I inherited some of their parents’ stuff and their grandparents’ stuff. Boxes, drawers and shelves full of unlabeled stuff. I wouldn’t call my parents hoarders.

IT ISN’T EASY STICKING to a budget. I get it. Surprise expenses pop up all the time. How can you possibly be expected to live on a strict dollar amount each and every month?
The answer is, you don’t. But the key is to make sure you have enough financial breathing room, so you aren’t living paycheck to paycheck. That brings me to three common budget busters. These areas of your financial life, if ignored,

WE LIKE TO THINK we’re rational, especially when it comes to spending and investing. But in truth, all of us are susceptible to impulsive decision-making and unconscious persuasion. Result? We often end up wasting our hard-earned money.
According to traditional economics—which depicts humans as conscious, rational decision-makers—this shouldn’t happen. But this traditional view has been under attack since the late 1800s, when Thorstein Veblen explored conscious irrational decisions, such as buying items simply to impress others.

I SUBSCRIBE TO a number of financial magazines, as well as a daily newspaper. Lately, they’ve been piling up in my garage unread. I scan the front cover of the magazines and the headlines of the newspaper, but I’m not that interested. I don’t care about “Where to Invest Your Money in 2019” or “The Best Stocks for the Long Run.”
I guess it’s because I’m no longer in charge of my investment portfolio.

IN SUMMER 2000, the Art Institute of Chicago fell under the spell of a young hedge fund manager named Conrad Seghers. The allure? Seghers claimed that his funds, called Integral, offered “the highest Sharpe ratios in the industry.” The Sharpe ratio is supposed to measure an investment’s risk relative to its returns and is popular in the world of hedge funds. Convinced by this pitch, the Art Institute committed more than $40 million of its endowment to Seghers’s funds.