Tesla in the S&P 500
December 30, 2020  | By Kevin Smith, CFA

When you hear someone reference “the market”, they probably mean the S&P 500 index, at least here in the United States. It is a list of 500 companies (actually 505) selected by the US Index Committee that are meant to…Read More

Introducing My Kids to Investing
December 29, 2020  | By Kevin Smith, CFA

My kids are 3, 7, and 9. The first money concept I tried to teach them is that money does not fall from the sky, but Congress and the Federal Reserve keep proving me wrong. The older kids seem to…Read More

How I Invest My Money
December 11, 2020  | By Kevin Smith, CFA

I spend most of my time helping people think about their investing decisions and not much time on my own. An old saying goes “the cobbler’s son has the worst shoes in town”, or something like that. Rather than my…Read More

Post-Election Market Surprise
November 25, 2020  | By Kevin Smith, CFA

How did the stock market do after election day? Remarkably similar to four years ago. 2020 Post-Election Global Stock Index 2016 Post-Election Global Stock Index If you predicted Joe Biden would win a contested election with a (possibly) split Congress…Read More

10 Year Forecast (October 2020)
October 13, 2020  | By Kevin Smith, CFA

Predicting the future is out of the question, but developing reasonable expectations for planning purposes is necessary. Calculating expected returns on investments is a difficult task, but fairly simple models have been accurate enough to help with long term planning….Read More

Elections and the Stock Market
August 14, 2020  | By Kevin Smith, CFA

I did not predict anything about 2020, including that the Presidential campaign three months from election day would be so quiet. You can’t escape it if you are glued to cable news or Twitter, but by comparison to past elections,…Read More

Tips for day traders
July 8, 2020  | By Kevin Smith, CFA

There is more energy around day trading than I have seen in years. Maybe it’s because of quarantine boredom. Maybe it’s because tech stocks have been soaring and FOMO (fear of missing out). Maybe marketing genius Dave Portnoy is responsible…Read More

The elusive ‘bottom’
April 22, 2020  | By Kevin Smith, CFA

Seeking the bottom of the market is risky business. The conditions that caused The Great Recession of 2007/2008 had nothing in common with our current crisis, but the feeling of watching stocks fall is similar. Investors are struggling with a…Read More

All Bull Markets Will End… And Come Back
February 28, 2020  | By Kevin Smith, CFA

We are still technically in a Bull market and have been for about 11 years. When we zoom out and take a deep breath, there is some solace in seeing that Bear markets tend to be much shorter than Bull…Read More

Strategy Breakdown: Selling the Highs and Buying the Dips
May 6, 2019  | By Kevin Smith, CFA

One of the most commonly referenced investment strategies must be “sell the highs and buy the dips”. Why is it so popular? Makes sense. Hard to argue against. Easy to apply (in theory). Low cost to execute. High profile investors…Read More