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I don’t think there’s anybody whom I can definitively say has taught me more about investing through their writing than John Rekenthaler. I feel like I’ve been reading his Morningstar column forever. Rekenthaler just recently announced his retirement. And his parting article is exactly in keeping with his others: thoughtful, with practical applications. Other Recommended […]
One thing I run into frequently — both working with clients and via correspondence with readers — is people who have financial goals that, to put it bluntly, are not very good. And to be clear, I just don’t mean that they’re goals I wouldn’t pick. I get excited about spending money on spring loaded […]
The IRS recently published the annual inflation updates for 2025. If you have questions about a particular amount that I do not mention here, you can likely find it in the official IRS announcements: Single 2025 Tax Brackets Taxable Income Tax Bracket: $0-$11,925 10% $11,925-$48,475 12% $48,475-$103,350 22% $103,350-$197,300 24% $197,300-$250,525 32% $250,525-$626,350 35% $626,350+ […]
TIPS are an extremely useful investment option in some scenarios. If you want to have a certain amount of purchasing power available, on a specific date, nothing can do that for you other than I Bonds and individual TIPS, held to maturity. But most investors these days don’t actually have any experience buying individual bonds, […]
Pets create certain distinct challenges with respect to estate planning. At its core, the issue is that pets, legally speaking, are property. In your mind, your beloved terrier Marty is a member of the family. But as far as the law is concerned, Marty is no different from a piece of furniture. Marty cannot own […]
Admin note: I have the annual Bogleheads Conference coming up this week, followed immediately by some vacation travel and then a finger surgery which will require a couple days of not-very-productive recovery. So there will be a temporary publishing hiatus here, with the next article appearing October 21. If you have read about retirement tax […]
The default prudent investment strategy these days is essentially a “buy and hold” (or, more precisely, “buy, hold, and rebalance”) strategy with low-cost index funds or ETFs. I’m convinced that a normal, early stage of investment literacy is mentally testing out various ways that somebody could do better than such a strategy: picking winning stocks, […]
I recently encountered a social media discussion in which a financial professional made the claim that [I’m paraphrasing here], the people you know with a multi-million net worth didn’t get there just by buying mutual funds. (He was making the case the entrepreneurship is necessary.) It made me laugh because I see households with a […]
Just a few years ago, if you read financial news at all, it was impossible to avoid headlines about Cathy Wood’s ARK Innovation fund. The fund’s performance was off the charts. What happened next is a story we’ve seen before, over and over: dollars pour into the fund, as investors don’t want to miss out, […]
Over the last year, one thing I have noticed is far greater money market balances than I used to see in people’s portfolios. I’m encountering lots of people who are using money market funds for the entire fixed-income side of their portfolio — or nearly so. And it’s easy to understand the line of thinking […]