Portfolio Back Test: https://www.portfoliovisualizer.com/analysis
Calculators: Retirement, How long will my money last, Etc. https://www.saving.org
Compound calculator: https://www.investor.gov/financial-tools-calculators/calculators/compound-interest-calculator
Sector Performance: https://www.barchart.com/stocks/market-performance
https://novelinvestor.com/sector-performance/
Fund overlap: https://www.etfrc.com/index.php
Can you add to my list?

To follow up on a recent post by Steve Abramowitz:
A Morningstar article published 3/11/25 addressed this subject looking at performance over the past 10 years.
It found that less than one out of every four active funds topped the average of their passive rivals over the 10-year period ended December 2024.
Long-term success rates were highest among bond and real estate funds.
The prospective payoff for choosing a winning fund versus the penalty for picking a loser.

IN THE 1990s, Mark Cuban started one of the first internet companies, a video streaming service called Broadcast.com, and later sold it to Yahoo for several billion dollars. With some of the proceeds, he bought the Dallas Mavericks NBA franchise and sold that as well, taking home another several billion dollars.
And for 16 seasons, Cuban appeared on the reality TV show Shark Tank, in which entrepreneurs present ideas to a panel of prospective investors.

Some people are enamored with the word tariffs. My new favorite word is assumptions.
I was listening to a podcast today and they told a story of a person who went to two financial planners seeking to determine if his retirement plan was sufficient. The first planner told him he had a 95% chance of success. The second said 75%. Naturally, he went with the first planner, but failed to ask the key question. What assumptions were used in the calculation?

March 10 market sell-off was a good example of two kinds of investing risks: overall market and stock-specific risks.
When you invest in a single stock, you are not only subject to overall market risk, but also risks that are unique to that company.
When you invest in a broad-based index fund, you can minimize both risks by diversifying.
March 10, 2025 Stock Market sell-off:
Dow Jones  –
Dow Jones Industrial Average       -2.08%
S&P 500
Standard &

Need a vacation from our turbulent market? Go first-class with Vanguard’s Total International Stock Index Fund. Why do I need foreign stocks? After all, they’ve drastically underperformed the S&P in the last few years—and let’s face it folks—the world is in turmoil.
The whole idea of plunking some money down on foreign stocks gives many investors the heebie-jeebies. You’re not a victim of home country bias, you’re just being prudent, right? Aren’t almost all foreign economies—especially government-heavy and 

The risk of sensitive personal data leaks is higher than ever, fueling identity theft, phishing attacks, financial account hijacks, and scams. It’s also a time when nation-backed hackers skillfully target critical infrastructure like mobile networks. A major hack revealed last year led the FBI to advise trusting only end-to-end encrypted communications.
No security is foolproof against a determined attacker, but you can make yourself a harder target. Nancy and I have so far avoided major cybercrimes but have faced fraud attempts.

One of the biggest financial questions I wrestle with is when to spend. Saving has never been an issue for me—my thrifty habits make that easy. What I struggle with is knowing when (if ever) to splurge.
For example, I love rock climbing with my kids. It’s a weekly ritual, and I have no hesitation spending money on those experiences because I know I’m investing in memories before they grow up and move on.

It’s now been 18 months since I retired from my primary career as an electrical engineer. In a previous post, I talked about financial moves I’ve made since retiring. What other changes in my life have occurred since retiring from full-time work? Here are a few:
Parks and Recreation.  For over three decades, my opportunity to enjoy the beautiful Pennsylvania autumn season was limited. As an engineer at a nuclear power plant, I was required to support refueling outages every two years for each reactor.

“It’s déjà vu (all over again),” is a quip often attributed to beloved baseball philosopher Yogi Berra. He might as well have been referring to the highly regarded and much awaited 2024 S&P Global Report on the comparative performance of actively managed and passive mutual funds. Its conclusions will come as no surprise to readers of Humble Dollar: Index funds drubbed those run by portfolio managers.
Here’s a quick read. Most actively managed stock funds underperformed their relevant benchmarks.

It’s been a long and wonderful journey. I have nothing to complain about, but I was reading an article that triggered a thought. Did I have it easier simply because of the years in which I grew up? Are things that much harder now? They are very different for sure. 
Was I just fortunate even when things weren’t so great after all?
I grew up in an apartment with my parents and two sisters. My father was a car salesman,

NINE MONTHS AGO, Jonathan Clements shared with readers that he’d been diagnosed with an incurable form of cancer. It was devastating news, especially for longtime readers, many of whom regard Jonathan not only as a journalist but also a friend. I count myself among them, so I was grateful that Jonathan agreed to sit for an interview to share more about his background, his early years and his current thinking. 
You’ve joked that,

I own two individual stocks, both utilities. One I follow closely. 
Over the last year it reached $94.00 but today it is $77.00
Some analysts predicted $101, others in the 80s and 90s. At any point you could find upbeat predictions and more depressing ones.
Buy, hold, sell they said, all at the same time, all after looking at the same data. 
All the company reports and forecasts are positive. Earnings are good, it all looks good…but 

Connecting with younger people is like a rejuvenating fountain of life for me.  Since many of us are fortunate to have children and grandchildren  nearby, we can enjoy being a part of their everyday life,  allowing us to share a special bond with them.
But some of us are restricted by the confines of chronology, and cut off from interaction with younger people. Small wonder that so many seniors retire to college towns. Being around younger people reminds me how thrilling it was when I was young—when the future was bright,

Given that we seem to be entering “interesting” times, I’m revisiting my rebalancing strategy
to ensure my approach remains calm and rational.
I’ve generally got a vanilla approach with a 60% stock and 40% bond and cash mix with low-cost index funds and 3-5 years of cash/cash equivalents worth set aside for living expenses.
My re-balancing strategy is generally “Do it once a year or if any one major category drifts more than 5% from it’s target.”