Investing

On February 28, 2026, “a war began when the United States and Israel launched surprise airstrikes on multiple sites and cities across Iran, killing Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and several other Iranian officials. Iran responded with missile and drone strikes against Israel, US bases, and US-allied countries in the Middle East” per Wikipedia.
Soon after, the Strait of Hormuz was closed to shipping, and by March 10, 2026, crude oil increased from $67 to $87 per barrel.

My portfolio is about as eventful as it gets right now — I’m on the verge of a threshold rebalance. My Vanguard Developed Asia Pacific fund is flirting with my 15% rebalance trigger, sitting at -14% as of Friday evening.
What makes this one interesting is that I’m sitting on an unusually large cash balance in my money market fund. Right now it’s actually my star performer — the only holding in the green. Bonds are a close second,

I noticed in the financial section of my local paper another story about a private credit fund restricting withdrawals. This time it’s an outfit called Apollo Global Management. Apparently investors tried to redeem around 12% of the fund’s capital base within a short period of time, and the fund responded by doubling down on its 5% quarterly cap. The result? Investors can’t access their own money.
This is the third story along the same lines I’ve read about recently,

HAVE YOU GIVEN any thought to what’s about to happen to your S&P 500 tracker?
Three enormous IPOs are expected later this year: SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic. Based on their most recent private transactions, SpaceX appears to be valued at around $1.25 trillion, OpenAI at roughly $800 billion, and Anthropic at approximately $380 billion. Combined, we could be looking at close to $3 trillion in private market value that wants to go public. To put that in perspective,

IN AN INTERVIEW a little while back, the technology investor Peter Thiel drew an uncomfortable comparison. Today’s frenzy around artificial intelligence, he said, parallels the tech stock bubble of the 1990s. To illustrate his point, Thiel pointed to Amazon.
By any measure, it’s been an extraordinary success. But, Thiel points out, it hasn’t been a straight line. At one point early on, Amazon shares lost more than 90% of their value.
“My suspicion is that that’s roughly where we are in AI.

I find it rather annoying to waste my time. Unfortunately, it seems I have to tag that handle onto my threshold rebalancing strategy over the last ten year period. A quick recap: I follow a once and done rebalance strategy anytime my equity holdings drift 15% from their normal allocation. The idea is to capture upside during a rebound.
After a recent post about my experience doing a rebalance during the April ’25 “liberation day” tariff announcement,

LAST WEEK THE government released its monthly employment figures for February. The results weren’t great. Payrolls declined, and unemployment ticked up. These numbers square with other downbeat data, including a recent uptick in bankruptcy filings.
Another worry: Oil prices have been rising, a result of the conflict in the Middle East. That’s a concern because it could lead to a reacceleration of inflation. It could also dampen consumer spending because higher gas prices act like a tax on consumers,

The title sounds like a contradiction. How can something be wrong and right simultaneously? Step back and look at the famous utterance from the Sage of Omaha, and it makes complete sense — to me, anyway.
Some background. In his 2013 shareholder letter, Warren Buffett laid out a simple inheritance plan for his wife: put 10% of the cash in short-term government bonds and 90% in a very low-cost S&P 500 index fund. On the surface,

I’VE RECENTLY MADE the most significant change to my own portfolio in thirty five years. For the first time I’ve moved away from pure market-cap investing, tilting meaningfully toward Europe and Southeast Asia and bringing my US technology concentration down to around fifteen percent.
I’m retired. I don’t need to chase the outperformance that concentration might deliver, and I don’t need the potential volatility that comes with it. This is a personal position rather than any kind of recommendation;

Return with me now to the year 1990. George H. W. Bush was President. The Buffalo Bills had a heartbreaking loss to the NY Giants in the Super Bowl. The Cold War ended with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The Gulf War started when Iraq invaded Kuwait.
In the investment world, Peter Lynch, the long-time mutual fund manager of Fidelity’s Magellan Fund, retired to be replaced by Morris Smith. In my chapter of Jonanthan Clement’s book My Money Journey,

I am retired and am making withdrawals from my taxable retirement accounts. At my last meeting with my advisor they claimed I should still be putting money into investments. Aside from rebalancing accounts, it doesn’t make sense to me to be putting money in at the same time I am taking money out.
Thoughts?

BEFORE ITS FAILURE in 2008, Lehman Brothers had been one of the most prominent investment firms in the United States. After 158 years in business, what caused it to collapse so suddenly? In a word: complexity.
Lehman had been involved in the securitization of mortgages, a process that resulted in taking something relatively simple—a home mortgage—and turning it into something much more complicated, thus obscuring its true risk level. That was the proximate cause for the firm’s failure.

Finally, I’ve gotten around to building a ladder. I have procrastinated doing so because it seemed like a hassle; buy a one year, and a two, and a three, etc. Then after a year, roll the one year to a five, and on and on. If I knew how simple Fidelity made it, I would have acted sooner. 
Looking for ultimate safety, We decided to use Brokered Certificates of Deposit (CD). As most everyone here knows,

If you were me, age 82 living on a pension and Social Security with both qualified and brokerage account investments evenly split and with the goal of leaving as much as possible to our children…
how would you allocate your investments?
I have 55% in domestic stock mutual funds, but including 20% in one stock. 4% foreign stocks, 27% bonds and 14% in short term cash. 
None of this is the result of a grand strategy.

https://www.wsj.com/finance/investing/yale-james-choi-portfolio-formula-stocks-02a96afb?st=z9cUhj&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
(From the WSJ a few days ago (HT Barry Ritholz))
“Yale University finance professor James Choi recently developed a formula that recommends an asset allocation based in part on your age, income, savings and risk tolerance. The formula is drawn from a paper he co-authored last year and was adapted for The Wall Street Journal.

In many scenarios, the formula recommends a more aggressive, stock-heavy portfolio than other popular guidelines.”
It includes a spreadsheet – and for me (66 and retiring soon) and my wife it recommended a 75% equity portfolio share.