A long obedience
“Financial market cycles always tend to last one day longer than our behavioural tolerance is to bear them.”
– UK financial writer Joe Wiggins, in an 8/9/23 post on his Behavioural Investment blog. He said that not knowing how long each phase of the market cycle will last is what makes them so challenging, adding, “Even if we make sensible long-term decisions, we will have to endure inordinately lengthy periods where they look foolish.” Read more at bit.ly/3OPT3zU.
The numbers don’t lie
“Trend-following is the one true strategy [about which] you can actually believe all of the backtests because price is the one key. Price is always tied to human emotions and no matter the environment it’s the one thing that is constant. The price tells you everything. Everything else is baked into price regardless of the environment.”
– A Wealth of Common Sense blogger Ben Carlson, in an 8/3/23 appearance on the podcast, The Meb Faber Show. Hear more at t.co/Ya2CyR99ew.
More than numbers
“Investing is the art of using imperfect information to make probabilistic assessments about an inherently unknowable future.”
– Money manager and The Big Picture blogger Barry Ritholtz, in an 8/23/23 post on how he defines investing. Read more at bit.ly/45GGQ7A.
The millionaire next door
“[They] are not people who found some hot stock and added it to their 401(k), and all of a sudden the balance hit $1 million.”
Fidelity vice president Mike Shamrell, as quoted in an 8/17/23 Wall Street Journal article about the growing number of investors in Fidelity-managed 401(k) accounts with a balance of $1 million or more. He said a distinguishing factor among such investors is a high retirement-plan contribution rate. Read more at bit.ly/3QTr8Sk.
Not what you’d expect
“It sounds counterintuitive but the stock market’s largest drawdowns typically occur in environments where unemployment is LOW, credit tightens, and valuations are high. This combo is a recipe for bumpy stock returns as seen in the last 24 months.”
– Cullen Roche, writing on his Discipline Funds blog on 8/4/23. Read more at bit.ly/45mo6dL.
The money/faith connection
“Money is neither a disease nor a cure. It is a tool — nothing less and nothing more. We may use it well or poorly. Either way, how we use money is always of critical importance to our spiritual lives. It has a lasting impact on two worlds — this one and the next. Use it, Jesus said, but don’t serve it.”
– Christian author/speaker Randy Alcorn in an 8/21/23 article at FaithFi.com. Read more at bit.ly/45IfOwr. Alcorn is the author of Money, Possessions, and Eternity (Tyndale House, 2021).
