Investing

LOOKING TO UPDATE your financial plan for 2026? Below are ten strategies you might consider:
Gaining control
January is a good time to audit your investments. I’d start with this very basic step: If you have accounts at multiple brokerage firms, see if you can consolidate them. This won’t necessarily lead to better investment results, but if you have fewer accounts, it’ll be easier to monitor and to manage them. This might not seem like an important exercise,

I am looking for advice on Vangauard’s recently launched active ETFs – VDIV, VUSG and VUSV. Their expense ratio is ~ 0.40. They are managed by Wellington funds which has been managing some known Vanguard funds
It will be interesting to see how it does in 2026
Thanks.

“The riskiness of an investment is not measured by beta but rather by the probability—the reasoned probability—of that investment causing its owner a loss of purchasing-power over his contemplated holding period. Assets can fluctuate greatly in price and not be risky as long as they are reasonably certain to deliver increased purchasing power over their holding period. And a non-fluctuating asset can be laden with risk.” — Warren Buffett, in his 2011 Berkshire Hathaway shareholder letter.

“There’s been a lot of talk
about an AI bubble. From our
vantage point, we see something
very different.”
Jensen Huang, CEO Nvidia
 
“No company is going to be immune
(if the AI bubble bursts), including us.”
Sundar Pichai, CEO Google (now known as Alphabet)
 
Is the AI revolution a blessing or a curse, an enduring breakthrough or impending economic and cultural apocalypse?

No one describes themselves as average at anything. We’re above-average drivers. Above-average parents. Above-average judges of character.
Statistically, that can’t be true—but it’s how we think.
Investing is no different. The average investor almost always believes they are above average. They read. They pay attention. They try to make smart decisions.
And yet, year after year, investors as a group earn returns that fall short of the market itself.
That raises a simple but uncomfortable question:
What’s the difference between earning the market’s average return and earning the return of the average investor?

I’m considering a Fixed Indexed Annuity (FIA) as a short-term parking spot for part of my money—only for 3 years with a guaranteed 6% return, not a lifetime annuity play. There is no management fee, only surrender fees if taken before the 3-year mark.
For those who’ve used an FIA this way (or evaluated it and passed), what were your results and your takeaways?
What should I watch most closely—surrender charges,

Since Warren Buffet is considered at the top of investing game, I heeded his advice for  40 years.  No bonds and an Index 500 fund. Guess what folks, I rolled into retirement never looking back.  ROTH’s came on the scene late and didn’t really understand the taxation, oh well, my wife reminds me about RMD’s and taxation,,”such a problem!”

LOOKING FORWARD TO some downtime over the holidays? Below are some favorite new personal finance books and articles to consider for your reading list.
A Richer Retirement by William Bengen – Back in the 1990s, financial planner William Bengen developed what’s come to be known as the 4% rule. It’s a framework to help retirees determine a sustainable portfolio withdrawal rate. This year, Bengen updated and expanded his research. The most compelling addition: Bengen addresses the question of asset allocation.

I WAS HAPPY to read in The Wall Street Journal that 401(k) plans are “minting a generation of moderate millionaires.” I spent the last two decades of my professional life promoting 401(k) plans to workers, so the news felt like validation.
Moderate millionaires were loosely defined as coupon-clippers with seven figures. Sound familiar? It should to many HD readers. At Fidelity, a record 654,000 investors had a million or more in the 401(k) in the third quarter of 2025.

Recently, a younger, intelligent, and well-educated relative approached me with questions about the book Lifecycle Investing by Ian Ayres and Barry Nalebuff. His curiosity piqued my interest, so I decided to read the book myself.
In essence, the book suggests that when you’re young, your future earnings (your “human capital”) are substantial and behave similarly to a bond. To balance your lifetime risk exposure, you could invest heavily in stocks early, even using leverage, and then gradually reduce risk as you age.

I’m planning to rebalance at year-end, and I’m going to do something index purists might consider heresy: deliberately tilt away from the market’s weighting.
Lately, I’ve become increasingly uncomfortable with the portion of my portfolio devoted to the Magnificent Seven tech stocks, currently pushing towards 25%.
The index purist view would say that cap-weighted indices by definition represent the market’s collective wisdom about valuations. When the Magnificent Seven grows to nearly 25% of my developed world tracker,

I see a fair amount about how index funds will ruin the stock market. According to this Wall Street Journal article there is a different and more immediate issue. Seems that there is a drop off in companies raising capital on the open market, instead restricting IPOs or their equivalent to a hand-selected group of insiders. Is this a case for some kind of regulation? Hard to see what kind.

EARLIER THIS WEEK, the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee met and decided to lower interest rates by a quarter-point. This immediately sparked a war of words.
At a press conference, Fed chair Jerome Powell took a swipe at the White House, blaming the president’s new tariff policies for an uptick in inflation.
President Trump wasted no time in responding. All year, he has been lobbying Fed officials to move rates lower. And while they have been taking steps in that direction,

I used to think DRIP was something only plumbers worried about. Then I started investing.
Dividend ReInvestment Plans — DRIPs — are a favorite tool among long-term investors. “Always reinvest your dividends,” the logic goes. “Compounding is king.”
For a long time, I agreed completely — and I still do for people who are in the wealth-building stage of life.
But at some point, I stopped using DRIP entirely. Today, every dividend my portfolio generates goes into cash instead of back into the market.

CRITICS OF INDEX FUNDS are pursuing a new line of attack. Passive investing, they argue, is distorting market prices and creating an unhealthy bubble.
To be sure, the market today is expensive. The price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of the S&P 500 stands at about 22. That’s substantially above its long-term average of about 16. Of more concern, that metric is approaching a level not seen since the market peak in 2000, just before stocks dropped 57%.