Investing

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.

LAST YEAR, an unusual story made the news: The University of Chicago was reportedly looking to sell an entity known as the Center for Research in Security Prices (CRSP). The story came and went quietly, but it’s worth pausing to understand it.
CRSP’s origins date back to the 1960s. Its initial goal was to build a database of historical stock prices. This is harder than it might seem. Before trading was computerized, stock prices were maintained on paper.

I’m not cut out for individual share ownership. Through pure happenstance I’ve ended up holding shares in two separate companies, and the problem is I now feel obliged to make judgement calls. Should I keep them, sell them, how are they faring against their competitors? It’s all a bit of a hassle.
Compare that to my retirement portfolio, stuffed full of index funds representing thousands of individual businesses. I never give those a second thought. So why can’t I extend the same indifference to two measly company shares?

OVER THE PAST YEAR, a new term has entered the lexicon: “Sell America.” The idea is that investors are losing confidence in the U.S. economy due to persistent deficits and concerns about other policy choices. Owing to these fears, some investors are pulling money out of U.S. stocks and reallocating to international markets. Others are opting for gold and silver. The result: In 2025, for the first time in a long time, international stocks demonstrably outpaced domestic equities,

Last February, just before I retired, I was wrestling with how to generate my retirement income. I flirted with the idea of moving 25% of my portfolio into a Vanguard UK equity income fund. I thought deeply about it—the fund historically yields above 4%, and combined with an annuity I was considering, it would have nicely solved my paycheck dilemma.
Eventually I decided against it, mainly because of the concentration risk. Betting that heavily on a single economy felt like too many eggs in one basket.

With online savings accounts still paying pretty good interest rates and with Fidelity’s money market SPAXX paying good rates as well, why bother with bonds?

WHAT’S THE BEST way to manage your investments?
A new book titled Your Perfect Portfolio helps answer this question. I spoke this week with the author, Cullen Roche.
Adam Grossman: The title is Your Perfect Portfolio with an emphasis on your. 
Cullen Roche: I was very intentional about saying “your perfect portfolio” because everyone’s different, everyone’s unique. So I wrote this book with the intent of studying lots of different strategies and styles.