Articles from the Uncategorized Category
An Alternative Stock Market Story
April 4, 2025 | By Kevin Smith, CFA
Imagine you’re baking a cake, but instead of carefully measuring the ingredients, you you overdo it on sugar to appeal to your inner child. The cake might taste okay at first, but it’s not balanced—and eventually, it could collapse or…Read More
Matt on Markets: Palpable Concerns
March 31, 2025 | By Matt Pierce, CFA
It is generally an exercise in futility to ascribe a single issue to a decline in market prices, particularly on a day-to-day basis. The raft of policy measures being proposed and the speed with which they’re being implemented by the…Read More
T-Bill & Chill
January 17, 2024 | By Kevin Smith, CFA
Hop in the time machine with me. You could have bought a 30 year Treasury Bond in 1981 yielding 15% annual income! That income was backed by the taxing authority of the United States Treasury, so it was pretty safe….Read More
2024 Retirement Plan Limit Changes
December 1, 2023 | By David Lowe, CFP®
The IRS recently announced that the maximum contribution for various investment accounts has increased for 2024. 401(k), 403(b), most 457 plans, Thrift Savings Plan Employee contribution limit: $23,000 That equals $958.33 per paycheck if you get paid twice a month…Read More
2023 Increases for Social Security Income, Retirement Plans, HSAs & IRAs
November 30, 2022 | By David Lowe, CFP®
There are some bright spots amid inflation news. Social Security benefits are set to increase, and workers will be able to contribute more to their retirement accounts in 2023 than in 2022. The following details are important considerations for open…Read More
What To Do With All That Home Equity?
May 3, 2021 | By Kevin Smith, CFA
Elon is here and he brought Tesla. It seems like a new celebrity or ultra-wealthy tech investor moves to Austin every week, and I hear casual Austin references in podcasts so often I barely take note anymore. This type of…Read More
Our Updated View on Bitcoin
January 22, 2021 | By Kevin Smith, CFA
We have been studying Bitcoin for a few years, trying to understand it from many angles to figure out why, how and when it might make sense to buy. ‘Because the price of Bitcoin has gone up dramatically’ is not…Read More
Cracked screens and the sunk cost fallacy
September 11, 2020 | By Kevin Smith, CFA
I almost got tripped up by the sunk cost fallacy. Almost! This is a public service announcement to help others avoid a costly mistake. A sunk cost is the time and/or money already spent. It’s done. For example, you spent…Read More
Great companies at bad prices
July 22, 2020 | By Kevin Smith, CFA
Prices matter. In fact, we think prices matter a lot. There is a price low enough to make an unimpressive investment attractive. There is a price high enough to make an amazing investment unattractive. Today, investors in the US stock…Read More
Three Mortgage Refinance Strategies
July 6, 2020 | By Kevin Smith, CFA
After a video interview with Nick Flanagan of Summit Funding, I asked if he could share some helpful examples of the different types of mortgage refinancing. Here is what he gave us. Special thanks to Nick for the education. Cost…Read More