This Is Your Brain.  This Is Your Brain On Money.

Let’s face it, the human brain was not wired to manage money. Forage for berries? Check. Keep the hungry lion at bay? Double check. Staying calm and rational during a market meltdown?  Not a chance. Bear markets eat most...

How Much Can I Pay You To Do Nothing?

I can still remember my first market crash, and boy was it a doozy. October, 1987. I had been investing for a few years, learning the ropes, and as I headed back to my junior year in college that fall, there were rumblings in the ma...

For the last half decade plus, U.S. stocks have been just about the only game in town. While the DOW and other U.S. major indices rest near all-time highs, European stocks, for example, as represented by VGK, have seen little net upward movement since 2006 (with plenty...

The night before Christmas, as little ones around the world slept peacefully with thoughts of presents to open the next morning, I had a dream. With US stocks suffering their worst December since the Great Depression (the original one back in the 1930s, not version 2.0...

In the November issue of the Coastwise Dividend Newsletter I summarized the feelings many investors experience during typical market cycles (and often take actions against their long term financial interests based on said feelings). While it has been empirically proven...

The US Stock market has not experienced a full-fledged bear market (defined as a drop from peak to trough of 20%+) in nearly 10 years. It is not a matter of if, but when, such a drop will occur. That is not necessarily a bad thing – all asset prices move up and down in...

Financial pundits have been warning of the next market crash (being defined as a broad market decline of 20%+) since… shortly after the last one nearly 10 years ago.  Even as with a stopped watch, eventually those calls for doom will become a reality, and all those tal...

In a recent newsletter, I made the analogy that you should visualize your investments like a grove of money trees, each producing fruit for you (in the form of dividends and/or options premium income) with the occasional storm bending, but not breaking the trees themse...

The great investors of the world have some common traits, including unusual levels of rationality and emotional fortitude.  They not only don’t get rattled by news and events that send most investors running for the hills, they invariably take advantage of it (think of...

During challenging market conditions, it is easy to get caught up in headlines and daily noise.  Sometimes it is helpful to take a step back and visualize your portfolio for what it is: a basket of cash generating – and often cash distributing – securities (stocks, bon...