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20 Second Advisor: Create Your Schwab Login This Month!
We are about a month away from the TD Ameritrade/Schwab merger. For clients with accounts at TD Ameritrade, you can go ahead and confirm/create your Schwab Alliance login credentials. By doing this now, you’ll automatically have access to your Schwab accounts on Day 1 of the transition. To setup your Schwab login follow the below…
Read More20 Second Advisor: Home Inventory Videos
My family has lived in the same house for 20 years. During this time, 2 of the 800 houses in my neighborhood have been completely destroyed by fires caused by lightening. Our house backs up to a wooded area that is susceptible to fire. I’m a bit of a natural worrier, and so we have…
Read More20 Second Advisor: Bank Troubles & Your Portfolio
Many of you have seen the headlines this week about Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse and that some other banks (namely First Republic and Credit Suisse) are in trouble. I thought it would be helpful to give you a brief overview of why SVB failed and if it has an impact on your portfolio. Without further…
Read More20 Second Advisor: 14% in a month (or musings about market bottoms)
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:…
Read More20 Second Advisor: Catching a falling knife (or why you don’t want to sell out in this market).
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…
Read More20 Second Advisor: Don’t forget about investing globally
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…
Read More20 Second Advisor: 6% vs 2.5% Mortgage – The impact of rising rates on home affordability
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…
Read More20 Second Advisor: Your Accounts & TD’s transition to the Schwab platform
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…
Read More20 Second Advisor: Investor vs Speculator?
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…
Read More20 Second Advisor: Are negative years normal?
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…
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