WHEN WE AIM FOR financial independence, what we’re usually trying to do is to convert our current work time into future free time. We exchange our time and labor for money today. The wealth we accumulate then buys us a future that’s free from labor.
Given this exchange of labor for future freedom, what’s the most efficient way to speed our progress? According to a research paper, “Capitalists in the 21st Century,” the best strategy is to own a business.

I WAS PLEASANTLY surprised recently when a lump-sum dividend payment showed up in my brokerage account. It was from a preferred stock I bought a few years ago to boost my investment income. The windfall reminded me of the three criteria I’d used to screen preferred shares:

Taxation. Unlike bond payments, which are taxed as ordinary income, the income payments from most—but not all—preferred stocks enjoy the favorable tax treatment given to qualified dividends.

YOU MIGHT WANT TO check your mailbox. Mr. Market has been sending around a book of discount coupons on some great index funds and individual stocks.
Twenty-two percent off the S&P 500’s closing high set earlier this year. Seventeen percent off the Dow Jones Industrial Average. How about a whopping 33% off the Nasdaq Composite?
Still kicking yourself for not scooping up Amazon’s stock (symbol: AMZN) in early 2020 when it was—adjusted for the recent stock split—below $100?

FOR THE FIRST TIME, retail investors have more money in index funds than actively managed funds. This is based on March 31 figures compiled by Morningstar and reported by columnist Allan Sloan.
Twenty-five years ago, Vanguard Group founder Jack Bogle published his remembrance of the 1970s launch of the first index fund geared to main street investors. As I page through the book again, I’m reminded of how close indexing came to failing.
Bogle recounts going on a 12-city roadshow,

THE INVESTMENT consulting firm Callan publishes its periodic table of investment returns each year. It shows the results of key asset classes on a year-by-year basis. Each asset class is color-coded and ranked from best to worst. This makes it easy to see not just annual performance, but also relative results.

The periodic table is valuable because it illustrates that there’s rarely a consistent pattern to relative returns from one year to the next.

THIS IS ABOUT my crypto journey. Spoiler alert: I still don’t own any.
My journey began in 2013, when I was serving as an assistant principal in Philadelphia. Since I was always giving advice on our 403(b) plan based on my voracious reading of personal finance blogs, a colleague asked what I thought about bitcoin and whether she should invest. Back then, the price was well under $100—close to $30, I think. I dismissively told her to avoid it.

“WHO DOESN’T KNOW that already?” That’s the question we should ask when making an investment decision.
Take Tesla. It builds wonderful cars. It’s an innovative company led by a visionary CEO. Its sales are growing by leaps and bounds. Question: Who doesn’t know that already?
If the attributes of a company are widely known, more than likely its stock price reflects that. The question for investors isn’t whether Tesla is a great company. Rather,

TARGET-DATE FUNDS are riding a wave of popularity. Morningstar reports that investors placed $170 billion into these funds in 2021, more than double their 2020 inflow. Morningstar also reports that, as of 2019, 58% of all 401(k) participants were invested in a target-date fund. That percentage is likely higher today.
It’s clear why the funds have become so popular. They can be an excellent solution for retirement savers who prefer a hands-off approach. To this end,

MIKE ZACCARDI recently wrote about his favorite podcasts. His list was excellent, but it didn’t include my own favorite, which is Focus on Facts by Eric Sussman. One of the most popular professors at the University of California at Los Angeles’s Anderson School of Management, Sussman delivered a series of riveting podcasts in the first half of 2021.
Given its short run, it’s no surprise that Mike missed the series. But I recommend that Mike—along with other HumbleDollar readers—go to Sussman’s podcast archives to hear his witty insights on the financial markets.

IN BEN CARLSON’S wonderful book, A Wealth of Common Sense, there’s a vignette about Bob, the world’s worst market timer.
Bob is a diligent saver. But unfortunately, he’s cursed with horrible market-timing skills, plowing money into the stock market just before every major decline. For you market history buffs, Bob buys into an S&P 500 index fund on the following dates: December 1972, August 1987, December 1999 and October 2007. The subsequent plunges from these highs were 48%,

A RECENT ARTICLE on HumbleDollar, which detailed the economic and moral shortcomings of commodity producers, reminded me of a conversation I had in 2004. I was in my study reading Security Analysis or watching The Sopranos—it was a little while ago—when I heard a knock at the front door. I opened it to find an earnest but scruffy sandal-wearing young man trying to raise funds for the Sierra Club.

AMONG THE AREAS of law that have made me miserable over 16 years of practice, it’s the adversarial roles that have made me most miserable. My experience in labor and employment law has been particularly difficult because the interaction with opposing counsel is usually contentious, each side compelled to zealously advocate for their position.
Almost any type of litigation is a zero-sum game. One side wins, the other loses. Because the outcome is never guaranteed,

“BUY LOW, SELL HIGH.” This is probably the most famous investment adage. It sounds so simple and commonsensical—a sure path to success. Like so many investing truisms, however, following it is easier said than done.
For one thing, how do we really know when we’re buying low? When it comes to a pair of jeans or a laptop computer, we have a good sense of value. When they go on sale, we snap them up without hesitation.

SOMEBODY OUT THERE is buying and holding longer-term bonds—but you probably shouldn’t. Yes, they’ll notch big gains if interest rates fall, but perhaps suffer even bigger losses if the upward trend in rates continues.
To be sure, investors in almost all bonds have been hit this year, with the iShares Core U.S. Aggregate Bond ETF (symbol: AGG) down 9.6% in 2022 through May 13. Shorter-term funds have fared better but are also in the red,

AMID THIS YEAR’S market wreckage, perhaps the most disappointing performers have been target-date retirement funds (TDFs).
Many 401(k) investors are familiar with these products. Just one of these funds can be used throughout your investment lifetime, as it automatically shifts from a stock-heavy portfolio in the decades leading up to the targeted retirement date to owning more bonds in the years immediately before and after the target year. Normally, performance is pretty steady for TDFs close to their target date,