CHIMAMANDA ADICHIE coined the term “single story” in 2009. A novelist and a native of Nigeria, Adichie first came to the U.S. to attend college. Almost immediately, she was struck by the one-dimensional lens through which many saw her. It started with her roommate.
Knowing that Adichie had just arrived in this country, her roommate—an American—asked how she was able to speak English so well. Adichie had to explain that English is Nigeria’s official language.

BACK IN 2017, I WROTE about an oddity in my portfolio—an actively managed mutual fund that I bought without much thought to how it fit with my overall financial goals. Today, I have a confession. That fund isn’t the only oddity I own. In the interest of transparency—and because I hope readers will find it instructive—here are five more oddities, plus the thinking behind each:

While I firmly believe that low-cost index funds are the best way to build wealth and I believe that stock-picking is a fool’s errand,

I’VE LATELY FACED one of the investment world’s greatest dangers: It’s called FOMO, or fear of missing out. If you pay attention to the financial news, you may be wrestling with this one, too.
Let’s start with bitcoin. I’ve studied it, but never invested. I’ve got friends who own the digital currency. I’m thrilled they’ve been wildly successful. But you know how awkward you feel when somebody tells an inside joke that you don’t get?

I’M TOLD THAT younger investors tend to trade more. That’s because those of us in our 20s and early 30s tend to be more confident—and perhaps overconfident—and that leads us to actively manage our portfolios as we seek to outpace the market averages. On top of that, it takes time to learn what works and what doesn’t, and that can also lead to frequent trading.
That brings me to 2021 and the four key portfolio changes I’m making:
1.

IN THE FAMILY TREE of investors that began with Benjamin Graham sits a quiet, 100-year-old firm called Tweedy, Browne. This week, it published a chart that offered a new angle on a key debate in the world of personal finance: Is value investing dead—or just resting?
Before I get into the details of the Tweedy chart, I’ll back up and first recap the concept of value investing and why there’s a debate about it.

EVERY SO OFTEN, an arcane topic jumps from obscurity into the headlines. Such was the case last week when everyone was suddenly talking about the “short squeeze” on Wall Street. Below I’ll explain what happened and offer four thoughts on how to respond.
What does it mean to short a stock? In simple terms, it means you’re betting a stock will decline in price.
How does one accomplish this? First,

MY OLD INVESTING self was like the guy in the meme who twists around to ogle a woman in a red dress, while his girlfriend looks ready to break his neck.
Just as jumping from one relationship to another introduces new risks, the same holds true for jumping in and out of different investments. For me—and for most people, I’d wager—investing in individual stocks and narrowly focused funds involves a certain amount of trading,

IT ISN’T EVERY personal finance book that includes a chapter entitled, “You Will Lose Money.” But that’s Ben Carlson laying down the harsh truth for inexperienced investors in his self-published fourth book, Everything You Need to Know About Saving for Retirement.
I interviewed Carlson recently because I find his A Wealth of Common Sense blog among the most useful for a small investor like me—someone with an intermediate level of market knowledge.

PREFERRED SHARES are mighty tempting right now because their yields are so much higher than most bond yields. For instance, iShares Preferred and Income Securities ETF currently boasts a yield of 4.4%, while Invesco Preferred ETF is kicking off almost 5% and SPDR Wells Fargo Preferred Stock ETF yields 4.5%.
But the reason is simple: They’re risky. Whether you invest in individual preferred shares or preferred stock ETFs, here are five risks to consider before investing:
1.

ARE JUNK BONDS RISKY? That was the question from a friend in his late 20s, whom I’ll call Josh. I answered that they were probably risky for him, but quite safe for me. Josh looked puzzled—until I explained that risk is in the eye of the beholder.
Josh has a stable career that pays well, but he doesn’t plan to stick with it forever. Instead, he wants a job that relates to his passion for outdoor activities.

I MADE A SMART financial decision last year that netted me thousands of dollars. What’s so fantastic about this decision is that I didn’t have to do anything. I just sat back and let my investment portfolio do all the work.
If you did what I did and ignored the talking heads, and just bought and held a diversified mix of stocks and bonds, your investment portfolio performed well in 2020. Those who warned about investing in overvalued domestic stocks and low-yielding bonds might be right one day,

MONEY MARKET FUNDS and other cash investments are paying interest rates close to zero. This is at a time of turmoil in society and in the economy. This is at a time when both stock and bond markets are at high prices. It seems like we have to choose between collecting very low yields on cash or buying investments with far greater risk.
An alternative to these extremes: How about a “short-term barbell” to hold money you don’t currently want to invest or don’t yet need to spend?

IF YOU OWN AN actively managed mutual fund, you expect the fund’s managers to buy and sell stocks and bonds as they see fit—and yet all that trading isn’t necessarily driven by their investment decisions.
Why not? Imagine the fund has had a few years of underperformance. That might prompt impatient investors to take their money elsewhere. This exodus can create headaches for the shareholders who still have faith in the fund. How so?

DEAR FAMILY, YOU KNOW I don’t typically give unsolicited investment advice. But today, I’m breaking that rule, because I don’t want you to get hurt financially.
I can’t promise that, by following my advice, you’ll be better off in the short run. But I firmly believe that you’ll be better off in the long run, by which I mean in the next five to 10 years. Please take this letter for what it is,

AS YOU STRIVE TO DO well, should you also strive to do good?
We’re seeing a boom in environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing. For instance, according to a recent Morningstar report, there are now 534 index mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) around the world that screen their holdings using ESG criteria. Together, these funds have almost $250 billion in assets—more than twice the sum they had three years earlier.
ESG investing offers a way to invest in funds that consider issues such as the use of natural resources,