AT THE START OF THE pandemic, we picked up a nice chunk of capital losses. I say “nice” because these were intentional. When the market dropped significantly, we realized losses and immediately reinvested the proceeds in other fallen stocks.
What about capital gains? In 2020, some of our mutual funds distributed capital gains, but we didn’t intentionally realize any other gains. Some of our realized losses offset the distributed fund gains. Another $3,000 was applied against ordinary income.

TODAY’S STOCK MARKET reminds me of Charles Dickens’s famous line: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times….”
It’s the best of times, of course, because the market continues to hit new highs. From a low of 2,237 in March 2020, the S&P 500 has doubled. Over the 10 years through July, the S&P has delivered an average annual return of 15.4%, including dividends, far above the historical average of 10%.

AS AN INVESTOR, I’d describe myself as a small-cap-value-aholic with a worldly outlook. Right now, I’m betting that one of world’s least loved overseas markets will finally return to favor after decades of disappointment. You can laugh out loud now.
Last year, my investment in U.S. small-cap value stocks was a great play from the March 2020 market bottom through about mid-May of this year. I didn’t catch the market bottom perfectly, but—luckily—I was close.

THE 19TH CENTURY feud between the Hatfields and the McCoys doesn’t hold a candle to the debate between supporters of index funds and supporters of active management.
Those in the index fund camp cite decades of data—going back to the 1930s—to support their view that active management is a fool’s errand. In fact, Standard & Poor’s regularly publishes a study it calls SPIVA, short for S&P Index Versus Active. Each time, analysts there reach the same conclusion—that it’s exceedingly difficult for an actively managed fund to beat its benchmark.

THE RAGING DEBATE of 2021 is whether the inflation we’ve been experiencing this year will be transitory or more permanent. The Federal Reserve’s official stance is that the spike in inflation is a perfect storm of pent-up demand, supply-chain disruptions and year-over-year comparisons that are “inflated” relative to 2020’s pandemic-induced deflation, and eventually will revert to more normal levels.
Recent hotter than expected inflation data—including the consumer price index (CPI), producer price index (PPI),

ARE THERE TIMES when a near 100% international stock allocation makes sense? I believe there are—and that today is just such a moment.
Never in my life have I had such a low allocation to U.S. stocks. My overall portfolio is 60% stocks and 40% bonds. But the stock portion is comprised of just 15% U.S., with the remainder held in international stocks, split evenly between emerging and developed markets.
I realize that’s unorthodox.

IF THERE’S ONE STORY that seems to have captured the investing public’s imagination this summer, it’s the revelation that venture capitalist Peter Thiel has managed to accumulate more than $5 billion in his Roth IRA—where it will be entirely tax-free to him.

In its reporting, ProPublica, the news outlet that carried the story, focused mostly on the tax aspects—the fact that Thiel was able to use his Roth IRA in such unusual ways. In my opinion,

MY HUSBAND AND I have been selecting investments together for years—and we’re still married. How have we gotten along for decades without killing each other?
Our investment discussions revolve mostly around individual stocks and bonds. They constitute the bulk of our investments and take up the bulk of our time. We own everything from small amounts of risky stocks like Immutep (symbol: IMMP) to blue chips like Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) and 3M (MMM).

WHAT WORRIES ME? It isn’t the stock market, but rather stock market investors.
Despite all the hand-wringing, this doesn’t strike me as an especially dangerous time to own stocks. Corporate earnings are rapidly recovering from last year’s economic shutdown—not exactly a scenario where you’d expect a big stock market decline. Meanwhile, bonds and cash investments are offering scant competition for investors’ dollars, which is another reason to be bullish on stocks.
But even if the overall market appears no riskier than usual,

I HAVE TO ADMIT IT, I’m one of those guys who likes to hide money. I have cash hidden in a couple of places in my house and even in the garage. And I’m not talking about a few dollars. I probably have more than $3,000 in denominations large and small tucked in envelopes. I also have a jar of coins.
You might ask, “Why in the world would someone have so much cash lying around the house?” I keep it on hand in case of an emergency.

YOU MIGHT RECALL Malcolm in the Middle, a turn-of-the-century TV sitcom in which the middle child often feels ignored. That’s kind of what goes on with midsized stocks.
Large-capitalization growth shares and small-cap value stocks seem to get all the attention these days. The former feature the FAAMG companies (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and Google) and other 2020 winners, while the latter are the darling of investors who embrace academic research showing strong long-term outperformance by small-cap value shares.

SHAQ AND A-ROD have gotten involved in special purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs, one of the hottest products on Wall Street over the past year. I got there a few years earlier.
In 2018, I invested $5,000 in a SPAC that has since underperformed the market. Still, I got some hands-on experience ahead of the 2020-21 boom. Thinking of buying a SPAC? Based on my investment, here’s what you can expect.
Tom Farley isn’t a household name like Shaq or A-Rod,

IT MIGHT SEEM LIKE an obscure academic question: Do stocks truly follow a random walk or can we count on them reverting to the mean? Depending on which side we favor in this debate, it can make a huge difference to how we invest—and to our confidence as investors.
Like me, many HumbleDollar readers have most or all their investment dollars in index funds. A key reason we invest this way: It’s impossible to predict which stocks will shine because they follow a random walk.

MANY OF US HAVE much of our wealth in stocks and bonds—and that raises some nagging questions. How safe is this money? What do I own that I can really count on? If I’m retired, how much of this portfolio can I afford to spend in the year ahead? These concerns grow when markets seem high.
How can we get some perspective on these questions? We might try calculating our “spendable net worth.” What’s that?

FROM AN EARLY AGE, my son showed an interest in business and investing. As a toddler, he’d watch CNBC with me. When my wife and I discussed legal and accounting issues, he’d have his “listening ears” on. (Yes, our dinner table conversations are pretty exciting.)
By the time he was eight years old, he was giving me investing input. He thought Microsoft overpaid when it bought Minecraft maker Mojang for $2.5 billion in 2018.