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I’ve often written about the dangers of timing the market. See this article for how I liken it to catching a falling knife. In that post, I describe how investors who get out (often near the bottom) may miss out on the substantial returns that have historically occurred after a market bottom. It’s worth asking:…

I often tell people that timing the market is akin to trying to catch a falling knife. You might get lucky and grab the falling knife on the handle. Or you might get unlucky – grab the knife on the blade and end up in the hospital. In a nutshell, we know that the market…

The US stock market is the biggest in the world, but investors who ignore other globalmarkets may miss out on a wealth of opportunity. Roughly 18,500 companies trade outside the US; this represents nearly 40% ofthe world’s $88 trillion equity market. When determining where to invest, a country’s size, population, or gross domestic productmay not…

If you’re looking for a prediction on when interest rates will rise or fall, alas, I cannot give you that info as I left my crystal ball at home this morning. But, I want to point out how much the recent rise in interest rates affect the monthly payments homeowners must pay when refinancing or…

As many of you know, TD Ameritrade was purchased by Charles Schwab in Q3 2020. We think that Charles Schwab is a great company and we look forward to migrating to their platform in the coming months. The two companies have been working behind the scenes to integrate their two platforms for the past 2…

I’m a firm believer that investments should have expected future cash flow. True investors should “expect” to be compensated for delaying gratification and taking risk (ie uncertainty). If an “investment” doesn’t have future expected cash flow, it is not an investment. Rather, it is a speculative guess. These speculative guesses are based purely on the…

This past quarter has been a tough time to be in an investor. In the first quarter of 2022, all major asset classes had negative returns. See here for a recap of Q1 2022 returns. However, during the last 13 years (2009-2021), US stock returns have been pretty good – the S&P 500 had positive…

Facebook’s stock declined by more than 20% in trading on Thursday this week. A stock’s price can seem random at times, but (hopefully) it aligns with the underlying financials over time. Unfortunately, a lot of investors don’t actually understand what they’re buying when they purchase stock. By this I mean a lot of people buy…

Raise your hand if you have ever felt being pulled in a thousand different directions? (I am raising my hand right now.) Sometimes, I wonder when it will slow down. I often tell myself, “just get to next month and things will settle down.” While this may hold true, if we aren’t intentional with how…

A couple of weeks ago, the cryptocurrency market tanked to about $900 billion from a high of $1.1 trillion after a more than 100% surge over the past month. This is just the most recent example highlighting its volatile nature. Remember, it wasn’t that long ago when it crashed 80% by the end of 2018.…

20 Second Advisor: 14% in a month (or musings about market bottoms)

20 Second Advisor: Catching a falling knife (or why you don’t want to sell out in this market).

20 Second Advisor: Don’t forget about investing globally

20 Second Advisor: 6% vs 2.5% Mortgage – The impact of rising rates on home affordability

20 Second Advisor: Your Accounts & TD’s transition to the Schwab platform

20 Second Advisor: Investor vs Speculator?

20 Second Advisor: Are negative years normal?

20 Second Advisor: Facebook & Value/Growth Valuations

20 Second Advisor: Is it time to delegate?

20 Second Advisor: To bit or not to bit