Since last month, the market has swung back and surprisingly gained almost 6%. Who saw that coming? Keep in mind it’s early days… not yet time to start counting chickens. Nonetheless, as this is a monthly newsletter, I think it makes sense e to observe the effects of this latest market move on the hobby portfolio and assess how the new strategy is working out.
The Road to Riches is Very Noisy Everyone who invests their own money is on a journey to riches. Well, that is everyone’s intent at least. The reality is that most people’s journey, including my own, is full of volatility, especially at the beginning. We’re all pretty dumb in the beginning and our annual returns … Continue reading Financial YouTubers: Friend or Foe?
October 2022 Newsletter In my July Newsletter, I set out a strategy to start buying positions in the least loved sector if and when the S&P 500 falls below 25% year to date (YTD). After a couple of near misses, the market finally crossed over this threshold albeit for a short time. True to my … Continue reading The Market is Falling, So Why Am I Buying?
I struggled with this question ten years ago when I retired at the age of 48. Everyone wants to know: "How much money do I need to retire early? Is it one million? Is it less? More?". Unfortunately, there is no magic number. Everyone’s situation is different and the answer to this question will depend … Continue reading Retiring Early: How Much Money Do You Need?
Every so often I review a sector within my portfolio to make sure that the individual positions still make sense. A review of my Energy stocks reminded me how much I despise that sector. Why? Because Energy stocks do not act like normal stocks. They have an additional level of complexity based on the underlying … Continue reading Why I Hate Energy Stocks… but Still Have Some
So there's an early retirement movement that has been around for a while. It's called Financial Independence Retire Early (FIRE). The idea behind the movement is to save half or more of your salary, by living a super frugal life and investing until the income generated by your investments equals your annual spending costs. Mathematically, … Continue reading Retire in Your 20s! Is it Possible?
Big changes are coming to the Monthly Newsletter! My girlfriend Nat, who has skills related to publishing blogs, website design, and other things too, has finally convinced me to get real… using the (gasp) interweb. Well as long as she does the work, why not? So here it is! The blog will provide a better … Continue reading Money with Marc: From Newsletter to Blog
Originally published July 25, 2022 Is your portfolio too risky? What is 'risk'? How do you measure it? These are all good questions and I have been pondering them since the beginning of the pandemic. In my opinion, most professionals do not understand what true risk is. They almost always talk about the volatility of … Continue reading The Risk Conspiracy
Originally published July 3, 2022 The American market has finally achieved a bear market status (a fall of 20% or more within the year)... then it climbed back up, then it fell again. So are we in a bear market? Sort of. You have to remember that 20% is not a magic number, it's simply … Continue reading Almost Time to Go Bear Hunting
Originally published May 22, 2022 Is the market crashing? Should we sell? Is it the beginning of the end for all asset classes? The internet is bombarding everyone with this kind of noise and scaring investors into selling. It's the internet and it's noise, would you really expect a reasonable message? Like, don’t worry it's … Continue reading Nowhere to Hide
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