I TEND TO KEEP MORE cash than the average investor, so the recent rise in interest rates paid on savings has my attention. In fact, 2022’s pitiful performance by bonds has caused me to shift even more money into cash.
We have online savings accounts at CIT Bank, Synchrony, Marcus and American Express. CIT is currently paying 3.25%, Synchrony 3%, Marcus 3% and American Express 2.75%. The rates have climbed so frequently this year that they’ll probably be higher by the time you read this.

I DID IT AGAIN. I correctly identified a trend but jumped too soon.
When interest rates plummeted as the Federal Reserve reacted to COVID-19, I had a ladder of certificates of deposit. Some of these CDs are only now reaching maturity. Each step of the ladder yielded 2% to 3%. This looked good in comparison to the low rates available through most of the COVID period.
As the short-term CDs in the ladder matured,

WHEN MARKETS PLUNGE, investors start questioning whether they have the right mix of stocks, bonds and cash. That’s no great surprise: Bear markets hammer home the investment risks we’re taking—and many folks discover their portfolio is too aggressive for their taste.
That’s a useful insight for the future. But it’s hardly one you want to act upon when, even after Thursday’s rally, the broad stock market remains down some 16% for the year-to-date and the bond market is off 14%.

A NEW RESEARCH report confirms that there are darn few reasons to consider an actively managed fund over an index fund—and, indeed, this year’s bear market has made the case for active funds even weaker.
Remember active fund managers, those stars of TV and magazines in days of yore? Purportedly, they could beat their relevant indexes by buying the best-performing stocks and bonds, shifting sector and country weights, and sidestepping market pitfalls. That notion seems almost quaint today—because it’s been proved so thoroughly and repeatedly wrong.

BONDS ARE ON PACE to have their worst year on record. To be sure, once interest rates stop rising—perhaps early next year—they may win back their place as a worthwhile investment for retired investors. But right now, that feels like wishful thinking.
As the Federal Reserve has hastily raised short-term interest rates in big steps to fight inflation, bond prices have fallen down the cellar stairs. Bloomberg’s broad U.S. aggregate bond index is down 16% in 2022.

OVER THE PAST FEW weeks, my wife and I did something we hadn’t done in four years: We bought bonds.
Specifically, we parked some money in one- to two-year Treasurys paying 4.3% to 4.6%—the highest rates in 15 years. Our portfolio now approaches 5% bonds, and we plan to buy more. We’re waiting to capture higher rates following the expected Federal Reserve rate increases.
Bonds represent a seismic shift for us. In early 2020,

THE NATIONAL Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has good reason to boast. Its programs serve as a catalyst to generate billions of dollars of economic activity that’s spread across all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Also, the transfer of NASA spinoff technologies and products to private businesses improves the lives of each of us in myriad ways.
Along the way, it’s even put men on the moon—and plans to do so again,

ONE OF THE BEST features of the stock market is liquidity—but it’s also one of the worst.
Whenever the market is open, we can find out precisely what our investments are worth and, if we’re so inclined, we can turn our stocks into cash with the click of a button. But this convenience comes with a major disadvantage: Yes, we can buy at any time—but we can also sell. This tempts some to bail out at the worst possible moment,

BILLIONS OF DOLLARS poured into Series I savings bonds toward the end of October, as investors rushed to snag the 9.62% annualized rate then on offer, which was guaranteed for the first six months. But it turns out these folks were a tad too hasty.
How so? Buyers of I bonds are promised a pretax return equal to the inflation rate, plus they sometimes also get an additional fixed rate of interest, over and above inflation,

ONLY CASH IS SHOWING a positive return this year, while most parts of the stock and bond market have suffered double-digit losses. And with inflation spiking, even cash investments have been a losing proposition in 2022. With nowhere to hide, perhaps it’s time to renounce active management and consider the three-fund portfolio.
Long championed on the Bogleheads forum, the three-fund portfolio is an indexing approach that drives down costs, feasts on diversification and ends investment selection errors by sticking with just three funds:

Total U.S.

VALUE STOCKS ARE having quite the year—at least relative to growth shares. This past week underscored that trend, with the value-oriented Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) rising every day. Barring a big drop today, October will mark the index’s best monthly performance since 1976.
Even as the Dow rallied 5.7% last week, the growth-heavy Nasdaq Composite index rose just 2.2%. For the year, the Nasdaq is down 29%, versus less than 10% for the Dow.

WHEN I WAS IN SCHOOL, corporate executives often visited for guest lectures. Two of these presentations still stand out in my mind.
The first was the CEO of a company then called Flextronics—now simply Flex. It’s a contract manufacturer that assembles products for other companies. Apple, for example, doesn’t have factories of its own and instead relies on outsourcers like Flex to build its products, usually in Asia.
You might wonder why a presentation like this would be memorable.

AT LOOSE ENDS DURING the summer of 1967, when I was between college graduation and the start of my psychology training, I chanced upon a book by Sheldon Jacobs. An early advocate of no-load mutual fund investing, Jacobs’s book and his subsequent No-Load Fund Investor newsletter provided my market mantra until exchange-traded index funds (ETFs) started taking off circa 2000.
Buying directly from the fund company, and thereby bypassing brokers and their upfront 8.5% commission,

WARREN BUFFETT HAS said that, when he’s in his office, he spends about 80% of his time reading—​as much as 500 pages each week. And for good reason. One of his mottos is that “knowledge compounds.”

Judging by his track record, this approach seems to work. Even in his 90s, Buffett believes there’s always more to learn and that more knowledge will lead to better investment results.

At the same time, investors often invoke expressions that suggest otherwise: No one has a crystal ball.

I’LL CONCEDE IT’S HARD to justify—but I don’t believe it’s 100% unjustifiable. At issue: my strategy of overweighting stocks during big market declines. I did so in 2007-09 and early 2020, and I’m doing so today.
“Market timer,” cry the critics. That, in financial circles, ranks as pretty much the nastiest insult you can hurl, even worse than calling someone an “annuity salesman.”
Today, if I ignore the money I’ve set aside for a big home remodeling project,