Investing

I advocate for low-cost index funds from Vanguard (read more). I rarely pick individual stocks because of the risk and time required to research. This has been a crazy year and the market inefficiencies are too much to ignore. I placed a few small bets back in April: American Express Cincinnati Insurance Southwest Airlines Cloudflare Store Capital Corporation Free stock trading has been the industry standard for brokers since last year. New apps and the absense of live sports for online gambling during the pandemic have contributed to gamifying the stock market. Robinhooders and Davey Daytraders have taken over. There is a game within the game. ...

Jack Bogle, the founder of Vanguard, was a pioneer of mutual funds. His advice inspired a large community of investors. In his book, The Little Book of Common Sense Investing, he shows the path to making sound investments in the stock market. Stock market investment returns are based on three categories: Dividends Earnings growth Differences in price-earnings ratios Mutual funds that track an index like the S&P 500 (five hundred large companies on the stock exchanges in the U.S.) provide broad exposure to the stock market. Certain sectors may provide better performance in a given time period based on consumer behavior and other factors that can be difficult to predict. Lucky fund managers will most likely revert to the mean. “Past performance is not a guarantee of future results” is not just a disclaimer in small text - it’s the truth! ...

Maybe I wish I got more? I researched cryptocurrency in early 2017 and I set up a wallet to store my first Bitcoin. The idea of decentralized currency created a media buzz that turned the focus to the exchange rather than the blockchain technology itself. New “companies” popped up all over with their ICO (Initial Coin Offering)—remember those?! BTC is now valued ~$10k—over 2x its value from earlier this year and 10x from when I got my first coin. My transaction in March of 2017 was a very small amount. Mining bitcoin had diminishing success after 2017 and I did not exchange any USD for BTC after my initial transaction. So, do I look back and wish I had gotten more? A10x or 15x return would be great! ...