Best Places to Find a Decent Used Car For Under $1,000

I suppose my pre-Uber generation might be the last one to equate having your own car with fun and freedom. In high school, I would comb through the "Under $2,000" section of the newspaper classified ads every day. How it looked didn't matter as … [Read the rest]

If someone promises to pay you back, they probably won’t pay you back.

Back in the stone age of P2P lending (aka 2006), I used to read through Prosper loan listings one-by-one. Borrowers would outline their monthly budgets showing how they could afford their loan payments, along with explanations of why they needed the … [Read the rest]

Buffett and Munger: S&P 500 vs. Berkshire Hathaway

Instead of watching the entire 6-hour Berkshire Hathaway (BRK) annual shareholder's meeting, I first read through the WSJ highlights and then watched selected parts of the Yahoo Finance replay which interested me. One interesting topic was about … [Read the rest]

Free eBook on Reducing Smartphone Data Usage

Ting Mobile has a free Cut Your Data eBook (PDF) about lowering your cellular data usage. The eBook is a nice collection of data cutting tips that ideally don't reduce your actual enjoyment. Examples include: How to turn off background … [Read the rest]

My Portfolio Asset Allocation Thought Process

A reader asked me to expand on the thought process behind my asset allocation choices. I don't have a highly scientific answer, but here's how I would explain it to a friend over drinks. Prepare yourself for some rambling... I know that I … [Read the rest]

The Growing Popularity of Index Funds and Higher Stock Valuations

I recently read (and re-read) a post at Philosophical Economics titled Diversification, Adaptation, and Stock Market Valuation, which serves both as an educational resource and an interesting argument for a new shift in stock investing. It's rather … [Read the rest]

Back Again! Free Website Reveals Your Address History and Names of Relatives (Opt Out)

Update April 2017. It appears that the same people behind the website mentioned below have created another nearly-identical website. Even if you opted-out last time, all of your sensitive personal information is up again on this website. You … [Read the rest]

Tough Job: 5% of Active Investment Managers Will Add Value

People always argue about how "efficient" the market truly is. Only academic, ivory-tower geeks believe in efficient markets right? My longstanding opinion is that no, markets are not 100% efficient, but it's a tough, cutthroat world out there. … [Read the rest]

Barron’s Best Stock Brokerage Rankings 2017

Barron's has released their 2017 annual broker rankings. Two major themes this year are (1) trade commissions dropping overall and (2) improved mobile app trading. To analyze 2017’s top brokers, we took a hard look at the value they offer to … [Read the rest]

Fundrise eREIT Quarterly Liquidity Details and Redemption Process

I've been putting some side money into crowdfunded real-estate investments - see here and here - and I have decided to test out the quarterly liquidity window of my Fundrise eREIT investment (review). An important difference between most of these … [Read the rest]

Buy, Hold, Rebalance a Globally-Diversified Portfolio 2017

When I think about it, I am impressed with how different 2017 feels compared to when I started seriously learning about investing in 2003. Instead of only reading about it in few books mostly read by finance nerds, nowadays nearly every … [Read the rest]

Callan Investment Returns Ranked by Asset Class 1997-2017

We've all been told that past performance is no guarantee of future returns, but it's still hard to buy an investment that has been performing poorly. We need to remember the historical power of diversification and that even though something may … [Read the rest]