IT’S INDEPENDENCE Day. But how truly independent are we, both financially and in our thinking? The two, I believe, are inextricably entwined.
Whether it’s the TV shows we watch, the political views we hold or the investments we buy, we often take our cues from family, friends and colleagues. They, in turn, may be influenced by advertising and the media. But however ideas get spread, the result is that most of us aren’t the fiercely independent thinkers we imagine.

I’M 28 YEARS OLD. How much should I have in stocks? Some financial experts would suggest allocating 90% of my portfolio, because I have a long time horizon and a steady job. But I don’t think that would be a good idea for me.
My father has driven hundreds of thousands of kilometers over his lifetime—because he’s afraid of flying, despite the much lower risk that air travel entails. Similarly, I have a good idea of what optimal investing behavior looks like for someone of my age.

MAKING CHANGES TO our everyday behavior isn’t easy. Inertia is a powerful force: Our brains tend to be on autopilot, not thinking much about what we’re doing—or why we’re doing it. It’s time-consuming and takes effort to pause and reflect on our habits and behavior.
Like so many others around the world, I found myself in lockdown earlier this year. I took advantage of the time to reassess my finances. I was shocked by some of the spending patterns I spotted,

IT ISN’T HARD THESE days to find media stories about family financial troubles—living paycheck to paycheck, no retirement savings, no emergency money and so on. These news reports often include complaints about the limited opportunities to get ahead financially.
That got me thinking about my own work history. My memory of earning money goes back to 1953, when I was age 10. It was about then that I recall understanding that you needed money to get stuff,

WE ALL WANT THE GOOD life, though we’d likely differ on what exactly that is. Still, our wish list might include things like meaningful work, a robust network of friends and family, minimal money worries, service to others, good health, a long life, and a sense of both serenity and purpose.
What stands in our way? As we strive to make the most of the limited time we’re given, it’s worth pondering how we’re constrained and what we can do to improve our lot.

AS AN INDIVIDUAL investor, what’s the key to success? It’s a question I hear a lot, especially in volatile times like this.
The answer, I think, is that there isn’t just one key, but rather five. The most successful investors seem to be equal parts optimist, pessimist, analyst, economist and psychologist. Together, I call these the five minds of the investor. If you can develop and balance all five, that—I believe—is the key to investment success.

I LOVE BOOKS BY Bill Bryson. If you haven’t read his latest, The Body: A Guide for Occupants, you should.
It’s an encyclopedia of the wonders of the human body. The overriding message, jumping out of every page, is how truly miraculous our bodies are.
Did you know, for example, that you are made of seven billion billion billion atoms? That if you laid all the DNA in your body end to end it would stretch 10 billion miles,

HUMANS ARE WIRED in ways that, alas, aren’t conducive to achieving our financial goals. Indeed, thanks to research by academics focused on behavioral finance, we now have a much better handle on the money mistakes that many of us regularly make. Want to become a better investor? Here are three insights into ourselves, compliments of behavioral finance:
The illusion of understanding. Once you’re aware of this illusion, you start seeing it everywhere,

DOES OUR PERSONALITY help determine our financial success? It seems it does, or so says academic research.
Psychologists have zeroed in on five key personality traits: extraversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism and openness to experiences. Think of each trait as a spectrum from, say, very conscientious to not at all. Each of us sits somewhere on the five spectrums. Maybe we’re a bit of an extravert, somewhat inclined toward neuroticism, and extremely open to new experiences and ideas.

“TAKE FIVE” IS JAZZ great Dave Brubeck’s most popular and enduring number—but it’s also a darn good piece of decision-making advice.
A few weeks ago, my son was struggling with exams and papers ahead of his graduation from the University of Pennsylvania. Though he would go on to graduate magna cum laude, he was in a dark place. I said, “Imagine a time two weeks from now when you’re back home and can relax,

DUTCH DISEASE. SOUND like something that might devastate your garden? In truth, it’s an economic term coined in by The Economist magazine in 1977—and it refers to the economic fallout that followed the 1959 discovery in the Netherlands of Europe’s largest natural gas field.
The natural resource was initially a great boon to the economy, causing the value of the Dutch currency—then the guilder—to rise sharply in the foreign exchange market. All good?

WORKING ON A TRADING floor has its perks—or, at least, it did back when we were all in the office, instead of toiling away from home. The trading floor where I work is small, but it still houses perhaps 50 people.
As you’d expect, we have TVs all around, tuned to CNBC, Bloomberg and—my personal favorite—The Weather Channel. My colleagues often talk stocks and portfolios. What’s neat is you get a good sense of investor sentiment being out on the floor and among finance folks who are geared to day-to-day market movements.

HOW MANY TIMES have you found yourself doing things you don’t want to be doing? It might be binge-watching Netflix, eating junk food or mindlessly scrolling through your favorite app. This is something we all struggle with.
Investing is no different. The behaviors we should avoid are mostly clear, but it isn’t always easy to follow through.
I remember vividly the day I joined my first employer, Chicago-based investment researcher Morningstar, as an intern a few years ago.

ON JAN. 10, 2000, America Online co-founder Steve Case stood on stage in New York to announce the largest corporate takeover in American history, buying venerable Time Warner for $165 billion. At the time, commentators called it the merger of the century. But just five years later, Case acknowledged that it was actually “the worst merger in history” and argued that it was time “to take it apart.”
Making financial decisions is difficult even in good times.

IT’S OFTEN SAID investors are driven by fear and greed. But I’d add a third item to the list: regret.
The past year and a half have been enough of a rollercoaster to rattle even the most even-keeled investor, creating ample opportunity for regret. Since the fall of 2018, the stock market has dropped 20%, gained 30%, dropped 35% and then gained 30% again. Result? Here are some of the sentiments I’ve been hearing over the past month:

“Why didn’t I sell at the top?”
“Why didn’t I buy at the bottom?”
“Why did I bother with international stocks?”
“Why did I buy high-yield bonds?”
“For the love of God,