Commentary
Commentaries
The Three Musketeers
Article
  Business Failures and Formations
Article
  Economic Realities
Letter Excerpt
  Sentiment and Stock Prices
Letter Excerpt
  Buffett’s $300,00 Haircut
Article
  What Really Constitutes “ESG”
Letter Excerpt
  ESG Investing Challenges Indexing
Letter Excerpt
  Investing and Volatility
Letter Excerpt
  The Illusion of ESG Investing
Letter Excerpt
  The Consequences of Stock Bubbles
Letter Excerpt
  What Does the S&P 500 Reflect?
Letter Excerpt
  The Growth vs. Value Pendulum
Letter Excerpt
  Recessions and Job Losses
Article
  Does S&P 500 Performance Reflect All of its Stocks?
Letter Excerpt
  How Do You Measure “the market”?
Letter Excerpt
  The Psychology of Investor Fear
Article
  If It Sounds Too Good to be True…
Letter Excerpt
  The Ride of a Lifetime
Article
  Coping With Losses
Letter Excerpt
  The Price of Waiting
Letter Excerpt
  Looking Beyond Short-term Prices
Letter Excerpt
  Short-term Price Swings
Letter Excerpt
  Investing Temperament
Letter Excerpt
  Informed Confidence
Letter Excerpt
  Fearful Investors
Letter Excerpt
  Warren Buffett’s Letters
Article
  One Cause of Volatility
Letter Excerpt
  The “Value” of low P/E Ratios
Letter Excerpt
  Retirement Planning Highlights
Article
  Lessons From Decades Past
Letter Excerpt
  Contrarian Investing
Letter Excerpt
  “Inefficient” Stock Prices
Letter Excerpt
  Commodity Price Cycles
Letter Excerpt
  Growth at Any Cost
Letter Excerpt
  Present Self vs. Future Self
Article
  Bubbles Revisited
Letter Excerpt
  Thoughtfulness Beats Simplicity Every Time
Letter Excerpt
  The Effect of a Trade War
Article
  Inverted Yield Curve 2019
Letter Excerpt
  What value bonds?
Letter Excerpt
  Record-Setting Economic Growth
Article
  Being Prepared for Volatility
Letter Excerpt
  “Crowded Trades”
Letter Excerpt
  The Essence of Value Investing
Letter Excerpt
  Losses Hurt More Than They Should
Letter Excerpt
  When “Safe” isn’t Safe
Article
  The Price We Pay for Higher
Letter Excerpt
  Volatility Does Not Equal Risk
Letter Excerpt
  Unicorns
Article
  Why Stocks Do Well
Letter Excerpt
  Bears vs. Bulls
Letter Excerpt
  Don’t Let Short-Term Volatility Guide You
Letter Excerpt
  Risk Defined
Letter Excerpt
  Investment Return Variability
Letter Excerpt
  Hyperinflation
Article
  Using Formulas…or not
Letter Excerpt
  Predicting the Market “Weather”
Letter Excerpt
  Sharp Moves
Letter Excerpt
  The Importance of Intrinsic Value
Letter Excerpt
  How to Handle Volatility
Letter Excerpt
  Sentiment Begets Volatility
Letter Excerpt
  Understanding Volatility
Article
  Pessimism is a Coincident Indicator
Letter Excerpt
  The Lowest Lows
Letter Excerpt
  The Balance of Investor Sentiment
Letter Excerpt
  A Penchant for Gloominess
Article
  The Bitcoin Bubble
Letter Excerpt
  Yield Curves
Letter Excerpt
  Inflation—An Unlegislated Tax
Letter Excerpt
  Economics Education
Letter Excerpt
  Overreactions and Volatility
Letter Excerpt
  Trade Wars
Letter Excerpt
  Factfulness
Article
  Emotions are Contra-indicators
Letter Excerpt
  Active vs. Passive Investors
Letter Excerpt
  Earnings Expectations
Letter Excerpt
  Discipline
Letter Excerpt
  Index Concentration
Letter Excerpt
  Stock Index History
Article
  “Growthier” Growth Stocks
Letter Excerpt
  Efficient Markets
Letter Excerpt
  The Planning Fallacy
Article
  The Price of Investment Popularity
Letter Excerpt
  The Look of Momentum
Letter Excerpt
  Saving Can Be Dangerous
Letter Excerpt
  Investing Patience
Letter Excerpt
  Bad News Can Be Good News
Letter Excerpt
  Baseball and Investing
Article
  The Price We Pay for Deficits
Letter Excerpt
  Price vs. Earnings
Letter Excerpt
  Language and Savings
Article
  The Limitations of Headlines
Letter Excerpt
  Sector Strengths
Letter Excerpt
  There’s Always a Story
Letter Excerpt
  World Economic Forecast
Article
  Large vs. Small Company Growth
Letter Excerpt
  Animal Spirits in the Markets
Article
  Stocks Capitalize Long-Term Growth
Letter Excerpt
  Press “Analysis”
Letter Excerpt
  Prized-Linked Savings Plans
Article
  Markets Within Markets
Letter Excerpt
  Third World Economic Freedom
Article
  The Illusion of Indexing
Letter Excerpt
  Five Commandments of Investing
Letter Excerpt
  Predators and Prey
Letter Excerpt
  Bubbles: Large Doses of Effortless Money
Letter Excerpt
  Second-Level Thinking
Article
  The Devil’s Dictionary
Article
  Keeping Focused
Letter Excerpt
  The Fruits of Competition
Letter Excerpt
  The Future of Social Security
Article
  Rely on Robo-Investing at Your Peril
Letter Excerpt
  Overpaying for "Winners"
Letter Excerpt
  Stocks and Race Horses
Letter Excerpt
  The Philosophy of Phillip Fisher
Article
  The Value of Growth?
Letter Excerpt
  Index Shortcomings
Letter Excerpt
  Capitalization Weighted Indices Revisited
Letter Excerpt
  How Not to Beat the Market
Letter Excerpt
  The Tao of Charlie Munger
Article
  Bubbles and Investing Temperament
Letter Excerpt
  Performing Better Than the Market
Letter Excerpt
  Bubbles and Inverse Bubbles
Letter Excerpt
  Emotions and Volatility
Letter Excerpt
  Why Value Investors Do Well
Letter Excerpt
  Buying During Underperformance
Letter Excerpt
  Value vs. Growth
Letter Excerpt
  Robo-Advisers
Letter Excerpt
  Dangers of Indexing
Letter Excerpt
  The Investing Temperament
Letter Excerpt
  Selling Out of Fear
Letter Excerpt
  Retirement is Long Term
Letter Excerpt
  Fixed Income is Risky
Letter Excerpt
  Emotional Overdrive
Letter Excerpt
  Indexed Portfolios
Letter Excerpt
  John Keynes as an Investor
Article
  Spilled Milk
Article
  Mortgage Madness
Article
  Coming to a (Tax) Realization
Article
  The Economics Principles of Life
Article
  Getting Rich Slowly (401k)
Article
  Failure to Communicate
Article
  The Road Not Taken
Article
  Poetic Pachyderm Pointers
Article
  A Tiger in the Tank
Article
  Mr. Market's Neighborhood
Article
  A Case for “Impulse Saving.”
Article
  Mortality Inequality
Article
  Every Stock Has a Story
Article
  How Do Skilled Investors Do It?
Article
  Do I Feel Lucky?
Article
  The Bias of Over-Confidence
Article
  A Brief Biography of Peter Lynch
Article
  Using Math as a Smokescreen
Article
  The Ideas of Charlie Munger
Article
  A Trip in the “Wayback Machine”
Article
  The New Retirement Landscape
Article
  An Economic View of The Wage Gap
Article
  An Investor Looks at Spinoffs
Article
  How Our Biases Feed Pessimism
Article
  Teachers Matter!
Article
  The Fiduciary Standard Explained
Article
  The Whims of Crowds
Article
  The Effective Contrarian
Article
  Job Polarization
Article
  Our Bias Toward Action
Article
  Ignorance is Expensive!
Article
  Proxy Season
Article
  Freedom of Choice
Article
  Investing for the Nobel Prize
Article
  The Undoing Project
Article
  Why We Need Index Investors
Letter Excerpt
  Corporate Tax Rates as Social Policy
Letter Excerpt
  Equity Diversification
Article
  Miracle Grow
Article
  Getting Rich Slowly (IRA)
Article
  John Templeton Revisited
Article
  The Need for Productivity Growth
Letter Excerpt
  Investing in Skills
Letter Excerpt
  Only Downward Volatility Upsets People…
Letter Excerpt
  The Surprisingly Dark Side of Indexing
Letter Excerpt
  The Downside of Indexes
Letter Excerpt
  The Stock Investing “Stream”
Letter Excerpt
  Focusing on Long-Term Factors
Letter Excerpt
  Letting the Tax Tail Wag the Dog
Letter Excerpt
  The Economic World Today
Letter Excerpt
  Economic Growth Fulfills People’s Wants and Needs
Letter Excerpt
  “Free” College Education
Letter Excerpt
  Minimum Wage: No Free Lunch
Letter Excerpt
  Prices and Predictions
Letter Excerpt
  Behavioral Biases
Letter Excerpt
  Inflation “Touches” Principal Even When You Don’t
Letter Excerpt
  As Successful as a Tail-Chasing Dog
Letter Excerpt
  Stay Invested Through Thick and Thin
Letter Excerpt
  Short-term Prices: More Opportunity than Meaning
Letter Excerpt
  “Stop the Bleeding?”
Letter Excerpt
  Investor Sentiment
Letter Excerpt
  Growth vs. Value Stocks
Letter Excerpt
  Growth vs. Value
Letter Excerpt
  In any meaningful sense, there are no guaranteed returns
Letter Excerpt
  Emotional Pressures
Letter Excerpt
  "How Poor They Are that Have No Patience"
Letter Excerpt
  It’s Best to Start “Cheap”
Letter Excerpt
  Don’t Bet Against Human Progress
Letter Excerpt
  Illogical Thinking
Letter Excerpt
  Economic Cycles and the Case for Patience
Letter Excerpt
  Prices and Emotions
Letter Excerpt
  Investing Tour de France
Letter Excerpt
  The Investing “Dark Side”
Letter Excerpt
  Bear Markets Will Come … Some Time
Letter Excerpt
  Saving vs. Investing
Letter Excerpt
  The Power of Compounding
Letter Excerpt
  Investment Myths
Letter Excerpt
  The Daily News Doesn’t Create Successful Investors
Letter Excerpt
  Volatility is not Risk Revisited
Letter Excerpt
  Planning for a Long Retirement
Letter Excerpt
  Market Economics
Letter Excerpt
  The Big Picture
Letter Excerpt
  The Fallacy of Asset Allocation
Letter Excerpt
  Tomorrow’s Crisis May Not Look Like Yesterday’s
Letter Excerpt
  The Emotionally Stable Outlook
Letter Excerpt
  Long-term Thinking
Letter Excerpt
  Correlation Still Does Not Prove Causality
Letter Excerpt
  High Returns and Low Risk (Still) Don’t Mix
Letter Excerpt
  The Equity Risk Premium
Letter Excerpt
  Current Fads
Letter Excerpt
  Correlation and Causation
Letter Excerpt
  Common Sense In Investing: An Uncommon Trait
Letter Excerpt
  The Definition of Investment Risk
Letter Excerpt
  The Benefit of Being Realistic
Letter Excerpt
  The Folly of Economic Forecasting
Letter Excerpt
  Buying High and Selling Low
Letter Excerpt
  High Frequency Follies
Letter Excerpt
  This, Too, Shall Pass
Letter Excerpt
  Finding Good Investments
Letter Excerpt
  The Key to Success
Letter Excerpt
  Di-worse-ifcation
Letter Excerpt
  The Importance of Diversifying Appropriately
Letter Excerpt
  Investment Success Occurs over the Long Term
Letter Excerpt
  Smart Investing: Purpose and Patience
Letter Excerpt
  I’ll Wait Until the Outlook is Better
Letter Excerpt
  The Definition of Risk
Letter Excerpt
  Bubbles: Pursuing Past Performance
Letter Excerpt
  Timeless Guidelines for Investment Success
Letter Excerpt
  On What Fixed Income Really Means
Letter Excerpt
  How We Attempt to Deal with Inflation
Letter Excerpt
  Behavior Economics and Information Processing
Letter Excerpt
  Inflation: A Tax in Disguise
Letter Excerpt
  A Long-Term Strategy for Investing Success
Letter Excerpt
  Retirement: Steady Savings, Market Returns and Patience
Letter Excerpt
  You Must Invest When Times Look Bad
Letter Excerpt
  Long-Term Advancement of Always Won Out
Letter Excerpt
  Our Inflation Prediction
Letter Excerpt
  Retirement: A Changing Demographic
Letter Excerpt
  How Not to Make Losses Permanent
Letter Excerpt
  Patience Pays Off
Letter Excerpt
  Life Expectancy and Retirement
Letter Excerpt
  The Risk of Living Longer
Letter Excerpt
  Progress and Economic Growth
Letter Excerpt
  History Repeats Itself and Progress Continues
Letter Excerpt
  Buying High and Selling Low
Letter Excerpt
  Taking Advantage of the “Madness”
Letter Excerpt
  Anxiety is Often a Contrary Indicator
Letter Excerpt
  Understanding Inflation
Letter Excerpt
  Happiness Can be a Frame of Mind
Letter Excerpt
  Danger Can Feel Like Safety
Letter Excerpt
  There’s Always a Believable Story
Letter Excerpt
  DOING Better vs. FEELING Better
Letter Excerpt
  The Cost of Panic
Letter Excerpt
  Predictions About Retirement
Letter Excerpt
  Inflation: An Analysis
Letter Excerpt
  Fruit of the Gloom
Letter Excerpt
  It Is Often More Risky to Sell Than Hold
Letter Excerpt
  That Wall of Worry
Letter Excerpt
  Cause and Effect
Letter Excerpt
  Economic Indicators: The Leading and Lagging
Letter Excerpt
  The Case for Economic Growth
Letter Excerpt
  Excessive Fear Results in Safety for No One
Letter Excerpt
  Important History Lessons
Letter Excerpt
  Bubbles and Panics Eventually End
Letter Excerpt
  What Does a “Bottom” Look Like?
Letter Excerpt
  Learning from History
Letter Excerpt
  Long-term Investment Success: Practicing Patience
Letter Excerpt
  We are Hardwired to React Before We Think
Letter Excerpt
  Higher Peaks and Higher Lows
Letter Excerpt
  Predictions Are as Accurate as a Broken Clock
Letter Excerpt
  There is No Magic Investing Formula
Letter Excerpt
  No One’s Right 100% of the Time
Letter Excerpt
  Risk: The Chance of Losing Purchasing Power
Letter Excerpt
  Short-term Irrationality
Letter Excerpt
  Diversification: The Good and the Bad
Letter Excerpt
  Successful Investing: Today’s Prices and Future Prices
Letter Excerpt
  Long-Term Investment Risk is a Function of Objectives
Letter Excerpt
  Psychological Traps
Letter Excerpt
  Retirement and Unexpected Expenses
Letter Excerpt
  The Media and Investor Sentiment
Letter Excerpt
  The Price to be Paid
Letter Excerpt
  Volatility is the Investor’s Friend
Letter Excerpt
  Benchmarks and Results
Letter Excerpt
  How to Beat the Benchmark
Letter Excerpt
  Fiduciary vs Salesperson
Letter Excerpt
  Focus on the Long Term
Letter Excerpt
  Economic Growth: A Product of the Enterprising Human Spirit
Letter Excerpt
  Investment Risk is Inevitable
Letter Excerpt
  Capitalization-Weighted Indexes
Letter Excerpt
  A Retirement Story . . .
Letter Excerpt
  Mr. Market’s Whims
Letter Excerpt
  Investors Must Ignore Sunk Costs
Letter Excerpt
  How to Get Lower Returns
Letter Excerpt
  An Advancing Tide
Letter Excerpt
  The Math Behind Stock Returns
Letter Excerpt
  Volatility is GOOD!
Letter Excerpt
  To Achieve Meaningful Returns . . . Accept and Manage Risk
Letter Excerpt
  The Mortal Investing Sin: Following the Crowd
Letter Excerpt
  Courage and Skill
Letter Excerpt
  How We’ve Done It
Letter Excerpt
  Taking Advantage of Volatility
Letter Excerpt
  Choosing a Benchmark
Letter Excerpt
  Inflation vs. Bonds
Letter Excerpt
  Later Retirement: A Changing Landscape
Letter Excerpt
  Investor Mood Cycles
Letter Excerpt
  Creating a Retirement Plan
Letter Excerpt
  The Cost of Lower Volatility
Letter Excerpt
  What’s a Peak?
Letter Excerpt
  Market History in a Nutshell
Letter Excerpt
  Capitalization Weighted Indexes
Letter Excerpt
  Discussing Popularity & Risk
Letter Excerpt
  Shouldering Risk
Letter Excerpt
  Buy Pessimism and Sell Optimism
Letter Excerpt
  Fallout from the Tech Bubble
Letter Excerpt
  Long-Term Results are the Key
Letter Excerpt
  Patient Investors Outlast Bubble-mania
Letter Excerpt
  Speaking of Corporate Retirement Plans . . .
Letter Excerpt
  On Fear and Greed
Letter Excerpt
  …Just Another Managed Portfolio
Letter Excerpt
  Taking Our Economic “Lumps”
Letter Excerpt
  Smart Investors Don’t Wait for Optimism
Letter Excerpt
  Bursting of the Tech Bubble
Letter Excerpt
  A Realistic Prediction
Letter Excerpt
  Intelligent Investing Transcends Style Boxes
Letter Excerpt
  Informed Clients: Giving Credit Where It’s Due
Letter Excerpt
  “Growth” vs. “Value” Investing is Overly Simplistic
Letter Excerpt
  The Power of an Index
Letter Excerpt
  Sharp Volatility: A Sign of Emotions at Work
Letter Excerpt
  Markets Bubbles and Irrationality Go Together
Letter Excerpt
  Missing Your Moment
Letter Excerpt
  When the Bubble Bursts: Happy Endings
Letter Excerpt
  Operational Risk vs. Price Risk
Letter Excerpt
  Many “Investors” Follow the Investing “Herd” to Their Peril
Letter Excerpt
  Markets Equalize Supply and Demand
Letter Excerpt
  Chasing Bubbles
Letter Excerpt
  Economic and Psychological Pendulums Swing Together
Letter Excerpt
  Current Prices Often Reflect the Future Story
Letter Excerpt
  The Investor-Athlete
Letter Excerpt
  The Market Moves Faster than the News
Letter Excerpt
  Investment Success: Part Science, Part Passion
Letter Excerpt
  Taking Wise Risks
Letter Excerpt
  Lower Prices vs. Fundamentally Low Prices
Letter Excerpt
  Counterproductive Legislation
Letter Excerpt
  Independent Analysis Powers Investment Success
Letter Excerpt
  Volatility Does Not Equal Risk
Letter Excerpt
  The Present Value of Forever
Letter Excerpt
  Change is the Successful Investor’s Best Friend
Letter Excerpt
  Overly Popular Strategies Inevitably Reverse
Letter Excerpt
  Success Won’t Come from Predicting What Others Think
Letter Excerpt
  Risk is the Chance of not Achieving a Goal
Letter Excerpt
  Inflation is a Predictable Risk
Letter Excerpt
  I Enjoy Volatility!
Letter Excerpt
  The “Great Equalizer”
Letter Excerpt
  To Succeed in the Long Term, Understand the Short Term
Letter Excerpt
  The Dangers of Indexing
Letter Excerpt
  Risk Assessment is Part of Every Decision
Letter Excerpt
  Short-term Investor Behavior can be Exploited
Letter Excerpt
  Independent Research Powers Our Investing
Letter Excerpt
  Mr. Market’s Ways
Letter Excerpt
  Pessimism is the Fuel of a Bull Market
Letter Excerpt
  The News is Always Darkest at the Bottom
Letter Excerpt
  Pessimism Matters More than the Reasons Behind It
Letter Excerpt
  Inflation: The Final Medicine
Letter Excerpt
  Down Markets Create Opportunities
Letter Excerpt
  Ignore Short-term Fears
Letter Excerpt
  Human Progress has been a Constant
Letter Excerpt
  Economic Change can have Negative Side Effects
Letter Excerpt
  Cultivating a Long-term Attitude
Letter Excerpt
  What Prudence Means in Investing
Letter Excerpt
  Investor Personality Affects Success
Letter Excerpt
  Understanding Investment Performance
Letter Excerpt