Investing

Do any HumbleDollar readers use direct indexing? (If you have to ask what that is, you are not likely using this.) If you are either using this relatively new financial tool, or if you seriously considered it and made a reasoned decision not to use it, I’d appreciate hearing from you.
My personal situation is an overallocation to cash (55%) caused primarily by selling out of a low-basis ETF that created an overconcentration in tech stocks.

RETIREMENT IS LIFE’S most expensive purchase. During our working years, we deprive our present selves of immediate pleasure by refusing to spend money for nicer cars, a bigger house or a vacation to boast about. Instead, we squirrel away those saved dollars with an eye toward keeping the future us fed, clothed and living indoors. 
At age 64, after decades of choosing to save and invest a large chunk of each paycheck, rather than spend it,

AN UNUSUAL STORY hit the news this week. GameStop, the struggling video game retailer, announced a bid to buy eBay. The offer was unexpected, but what surprised investors more was the economics of the proposed deal. eBay is many times larger than GameStop, making it difficult to understand how GameStop would be able to finance the acquisition.
GameStop has offered $56 billion for eBay, comprised of cash and stock. For the cash portion, according to its May 3 press release,

OUR FIRST GRANDCHILD recently arrived, which naturally has us thinking about the smartest ways to build a strong financial foundation for her future. In 2019, I wrote Take a Break, which outlined saving strategies on behalf of children. Since then, the landscape has changed with the introduction of Trump accounts and Roth-conversion pathways for 529 accounts. 
Families have four tax-advantaged savings approaches on behalf of young children plus the Roth IRA option once the child has earned income – 529 education savings account,

IN THE INVESTMENT world, May 1st is a notable day. It was on May 1, 1975 that the Securities and Exchange Commission deregulated the brokerage industry. For the 183 years prior to that, trading commissions on the New York Stock Exchange had been fixed at uniformly high rates. But when deregulation arrived, competition got going. That’s when discount brokers like Charles Schwab got rolling, and over time, May Day, as it’s now referred to,

On April 28, 1989, my wife Suzie and I said “I do.” As we walked out of the church, the S&P 500 was sitting at a modest 309 points. Unfortunately, nobody thought to gift us a pre-funded index fund that day. What we actually received was three toasters, a bread maker, and enough crystal glassware to open a small shop.
But here’s a question worth asking as our anniversaries have stacked up: what if someone had slipped a $10,000 index fund certificate into one of those cards?

Last weekend, my wife and I returned to our former southeastern PA home town.  The occasion was a series of events with family and good friends, many former colleagues of mine.  On Friday night we had a happy reunion with a group that made up a wine making team, beginning in 2012, and continuing until Covid shut us down.  Most of the team is now retired, and much of the talk was about retirement, pensions, Medicare,

IN 2020, ELECTRIC car maker Lucid Motors brought in revenue of $4 million. Five years later, sales had risen impressively, to more than $1 billion. In 2025 alone, sales grew 68%. That sounds like a success story, and through that lens, it is. And yet, over that same period, the company’s stock dropped more than 89%.
What happened?
A better question is: What didn’t happen? Despite growing sales, the company has struggled to turn a profit.

The great football coach Vince Lombardi would often start each season by holding up a football in front of his team and saying, “Gentlemen, this is a football.” His point was simple but powerful: even the greatest players must return to the fundamentals if they want to succeed.
The same is true with investing. Whether you are a young person just starting out or someone who has been saving for decades, it helps to go back to the basics.

IT’S BEEN MORE than six years since Covid first entered our vocabulary. It goes without saying that investors have experienced a lot, and for better or worse, recent market events provide some useful lessons. The first has to do with the nature of the stock market.
What drives stock prices? Open a finance textbook, and the answer will be clear: The value of a stock should equal the sum of the company’s future profits.

I’m going to display my ignorance to a few of my most trusted friends…..
AGNC a REIT with a 4 yr history of 12-13% dividend payouts that currently pull out 98% of earnings, like most REITs.
Why doesn’t everyone flock to this stock?

RECENTLY, The Wall Street Journal ran a story about a new type of investment known as a digital stock token. For now, they aren’t available in the U.S., but they’re coming soon, so it’s worth taking a closer look.
What are stock tokens? At the most basic level, they’re a technology designed to make stock market investing quicker and easier than it is today. With tokens, trading won’t be limited to traditional business hours.

TAX EFFICIENT FUND placement is an often underrated topic. The goal of the tax efficient fund placement is to minimize taxes within your investments, and select the right account for those investments.

But how much does that actually matter?

Vanguard’s research finds that a thoughtful asset location strategy can add significantly more value than an equal location strategy. The value added typically ranges from 5 to 30 basis points of after-tax return, depending on circumstances (e.g.,

According to an article in the Toledo Blade (04/02), the Jones Leadership Academy of Business in Toledo is one of only two high schools in the country to have a simulated stock market lab. That is something that I feel the Toledo Public School district should be very proud of. The class is available to students during their junior and senior years. This is also the third year that the students have had a stock picking ‘challenge’.

Imagine an orchard where, every season, fruit is harvested and sold for income. How much is the orchard worth?
One owner might say that the orchard is worth so many dollars—what it could be sold for. But another owner might say that the orchard is worth so many dollars per year; that is, it’s worth is expressed in the income it generates, not in it’s current market value. Ownership of such income-producing assets is what allows wealthy families to remain wealthy over generations.