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Bequeath your thoughtfulness, not a thoughtless financial mess.
THE STOCK MARKET HAS been one of my life’s enduring interests. No, it’s not because I try to pick market-beating investments. I gave up on that nonsense more than three decades ago.
Rather, I’m fascinated by the way we humans engage with this maddening market that promises both riches and peril, and which seems both ruthlessly efficient and utterly nuts. What have I learned from a lifetime of following the stock market? The sad truth is,
PEOPLE WHO KNOW ME say I’m sentimental, and they’re right. I like visiting places like my elementary school, the house where I grew up and my first home away from home. They bring back fond memories.
As I’ve grown older, I’ve become more nostalgic, and it isn’t just me. I heard that the ashes of my childhood friend Brian were spread over our grade school grounds. He must have had a touch of nostalgia,
EARLIER THIS YEAR, I came up with what I thought was a brilliant idea. I’d signed up for the August 2025 Ironman Ottawa to celebrate my 70th birthday and thought, “Why not jump on the Ozempic bandwagon for six months to drop some significant excess weight before the heavy training starts?”
I’ve struggled with my weight for years. My doctor calls me an emotional eater. I thought, if I dropped the weight and committed to keeping it off,
ONE DAY, AS I WAS walking through the mathematics building at the community college I attended, I saw a poster that screamed, “Math Majors?”
That got my attention. The poster introduced me to a career possibility: becoming an actuary. My job path was set. Or so I thought.
The actuarial career path consists of passing either five or 10 standardized tests. Complete five, and you become an associate. Complete 10, and you’re a fellow.
IMAGINE TAKING DOLLAR bills and inserting them into a shredder. This is how you might think about a concept that economists call “deadweight loss.” As its name suggests, a deadweight loss occurs when there’s an irrevocable loss of economic output.
Deadweight losses can occur under a variety of circumstances. Among them: when tariffs are imposed. It’s for that reason that the incoming administration’s tariff plan has raised concerns. But how worried should we be?
MANAGING MONEY IS about managing risk. But which risks? We all have a different collection of financial worries, and that drives the investments we buy and the insurance we purchase.
Problem is, every choice we make comes with a tradeoff. If we seek to fend off one risk, we often open ourselves up to other dangers. Consider five such tradeoffs:
1. Dying young vs. living long. When should we claim Social Security?
MAIL CHECKS with care. Ideally, you’d avoid the risk by paying online. But if that isn’t an option, be aware there’s a chance the check could be stolen and “washed” so it’s made out to someone new and for a far larger sum. What to do? Use the mail slot inside the post office to mail envelopes containing checks—and fill out your checks using a fraud prevention pen.
FIDUCIARY. If financial advisors are fiduciaries, they’re legally obligated to act in your best interest. By contrast, stockbrokers working on commission are held to the lower suitability standard: Their recommendations merely have to be suitable for the client. Be warned: Advisors may say they’re fiduciaries—but only act that way part of the time.
NO. 82: RETIREES need stocks to combat inflation. Even at a modest 2% inflation rate, the spending power of $1 is reduced to 61 cents after 25 years. Yes, owning stocks is risky. But if you have a cash cushion to cover the next five years of portfolio withdrawals, you should be able to ride out a bear market without being forced to sell stocks at fire-sale prices.
NO. 38: AS STOCK prices fall, our enthusiasm should climb. The decline raises expected returns and offers the chance to buy at lower prices, both with new money and through rebalancing.
EXPERTS OFTEN SUGGEST putting bonds or bond funds in retirement accounts. I think this is kind of dumb—or, at the very least, it places the focus on the wrong thing.
It’s always a good idea to consider taxes. But my experience is that many people place too much emphasis on taxes, often to their own detriment. Municipal bonds are a great example of this: Many people who purchase them are in lower tax brackets,
WHEN I WAS BORN 80-plus years ago in Madathumpady, it was one of the remotest villages in India. The country was ruled by the British and the freedom struggle was underway, led by Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru.
My parents hadn’t attended school because there were no schools in the village when they grew up. But they weren’t illiterate. Both learned to read and write. In fact, my mother taught me how to read and write before I attended school.
AT LOOSE ENDS DURING the summer of 1967, when I was between college graduation and the start of my psychology training, I chanced upon a book by Sheldon Jacobs. An early advocate of no-load mutual fund investing, Jacobs’s book and his subsequent No-Load Fund Investor newsletter provided my market mantra until exchange-traded index funds (ETFs) started taking off circa 2000.
Buying directly from the fund company, and thereby bypassing brokers and their upfront 8.5% commission,
MY WIFE KEEPS COMING up with ideas for where we should travel next. She says, “How about New Orleans, Savannah or Charleston?” My wife can’t get enough of traveling. I’d rather hang around the house for a while.
This year, we experienced long flight delays on our last two trips back from Europe, so right now I’m not anxious to get on another plane. The most recent headache was our flight home from Ireland.
WHEN I WAS IN THE Navy, the checklist was a way of life. Everything from a radiation leak to starting an air compressor required one. In emergency situations like flooding, you were expected to take memorized “immediate actions,” and then use a checklist to ensure all the actions were accomplished. For more routine procedures, you would follow the checklist line by line—deviations were not allowed.
While this wasn’t conducive to a creative working environment,
NO. 38: AS STOCK prices fall, our enthusiasm should climb. The decline raises expected returns and offers the chance to buy at lower prices, both with new money and through rebalancing.
MAIL CHECKS with care. Ideally, you’d avoid the risk by paying online. But if that isn’t an option, be aware there’s a chance the check could be stolen and “washed” so it’s made out to someone new and for a far larger sum. What to do? Use the mail slot inside the post office to mail envelopes containing checks—and fill out your checks using a fraud prevention pen.
FIDUCIARY. If financial advisors are fiduciaries, they’re legally obligated to act in your best interest. By contrast, stockbrokers working on commission are held to the lower suitability standard: Their recommendations merely have to be suitable for the client. Be warned: Advisors may say they’re fiduciaries—but only act that way part of the time.
NO. 82: RETIREES need stocks to combat inflation. Even at a modest 2% inflation rate, the spending power of $1 is reduced to 61 cents after 25 years. Yes, owning stocks is risky. But if you have a cash cushion to cover the next five years of portfolio withdrawals, you should be able to ride out a bear market without being forced to sell stocks at fire-sale prices.
EXPERTS OFTEN SUGGEST putting bonds or bond funds in retirement accounts. I think this is kind of dumb—or, at the very least, it places the focus on the wrong thing.
It’s always a good idea to consider taxes. But my experience is that many people place too much emphasis on taxes, often to their own detriment. Municipal bonds are a great example of this: Many people who purchase them are in lower tax brackets,
WHEN I WAS BORN 80-plus years ago in Madathumpady, it was one of the remotest villages in India. The country was ruled by the British and the freedom struggle was underway, led by Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru.
My parents hadn’t attended school because there were no schools in the village when they grew up. But they weren’t illiterate. Both learned to read and write. In fact, my mother taught me how to read and write before I attended school.
AT LOOSE ENDS DURING the summer of 1967, when I was between college graduation and the start of my psychology training, I chanced upon a book by Sheldon Jacobs. An early advocate of no-load mutual fund investing, Jacobs’s book and his subsequent No-Load Fund Investor newsletter provided my market mantra until exchange-traded index funds (ETFs) started taking off circa 2000.
Buying directly from the fund company, and thereby bypassing brokers and their upfront 8.5% commission,
MY WIFE KEEPS COMING up with ideas for where we should travel next. She says, “How about New Orleans, Savannah or Charleston?” My wife can’t get enough of traveling. I’d rather hang around the house for a while.
This year, we experienced long flight delays on our last two trips back from Europe, so right now I’m not anxious to get on another plane. The most recent headache was our flight home from Ireland.
WHEN I WAS IN THE Navy, the checklist was a way of life. Everything from a radiation leak to starting an air compressor required one. In emergency situations like flooding, you were expected to take memorized “immediate actions,” and then use a checklist to ensure all the actions were accomplished. For more routine procedures, you would follow the checklist line by line—deviations were not allowed.
While this wasn’t conducive to a creative working environment,
When should one give up control over finances?
The Oldest Daughter Dilemma
Too Big to Succeed by Jonathan Clements
Oh, The Places Your Money Will Go! (The Paradox of Passive Investing)
Money Stress in Childhood
Quinn’s last rant for 2024. Misinformation is frustrating. No, your wife is not a car!