The Language of Loss
August 4, 2022  | By Kevin Smith

If you bet against the Golden State Warriors basketball team, and you watched their star, Steph Curry, make a game winning shot, it may have felt like you were losing money from the time the ball left his hand until…Read More

Vested RSUs in a Market Decline
August 4, 2022  | By Manisha Gupta

Do you have restricted stock units (RSUs) that have recently vested? If you work in the tech or financial sectors in 2022, that probably means that you have seen a decline in their value (energy sector folks have this in…Read More

Markets and War
March 15, 2022  | By Kevin Smith

I’ve heard financial markets described as “expectations machines”, and I think that’s about right. Asset prices are based on what people are willing to pay for them, which is based on what they expect to receive in return. Prices go…Read More

Investing for the Unknowable
September 22, 2021  | By Matt Pierce

By Matthew Pierce, CFA Yogi was right, and it’s particularly difficult when it’s your hard earned money on the line! Uncertainty never goes away, it just changes shape. It is the water we swim in as investors, so we should…Read More

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2018 Year-End Trading
January 15, 2019  | By Kevin Smith

The stock market brought us gifts just in time for Christmas. The chart above show the % declines from all-time highs over the past five years for the S&P 500. Christmas Eve just happened to be the most significant pull…Read More