Beginner

Put Your Portfolio on Autopilot and Enjoy the Ride

Beginner, Psychology

I’m a big fan of asset allocation. Rather than slaving over daily market news to chase fleeting profits and avoid unpredictable losses, smart investors can create an intelligently constructed portfolio that grows and protects their hard-earned money with low stress and minimum effort. Like following a simple recipe to bake a cake from scratch, all you have to do is purchase a handful of low-cost ingredients, combine them in the right proportions, and let chemistry, heat, and time do all the work. Simple but sophisticated portfolio ideas designed by some of the best minds in the business can help you meet your important life goals while freeing you to focus your own energy on the things in life that truly matter. And with just a small amount of coaching, anyone can do it!

What’s not to like?

Well, to be honest there is one thing that has always sorta rubbed me the wrong way. It’s not a problem with the strategy itself, but an inherent communication issue dripping in bias that I believe subtly chases off a lot of people new to the concept. Asset allocation has a marketing problem, and it all comes down to terminology.

Continue reading →

How to Prepare for Portfolio Moving Day

Beginner

While I know lots of people who enjoy watching house hunting shows, browsing real estate listings, and imagining life in a new home, I have yet to meet a single person who doesn’t loathe the process of moving. From finalizing the deal on the new place, unloading the old one, packing all of your stuff, arranging the move, and coordinating the timing of every step all while continuing to work your day job, moving can be really stressful. It’s enough to drive many people to reevaluate whether it’s all worth it and just be happy where they are.

Transitioning to a new portfolio can often be equally tricky. Sure, the actual move is just a matter of clicking a few buttons on a computer screen rather than loading your entire life into a truck. But that’s just one step in a long and detailed process. Figuring out the best way to move your money while minimizing taxes and dealing with the uncertainty surrounding future market returns makes moving portfolios a complicated and emotionally-charged endeavor. What if you mess up? What if your new portfolio loses money the moment you buy in?

When in doubt, doing nothing really isn’t such a bad choice. But staying the course isn’t always the wisest decision when that course was set years ago before you really knew what you were doing. It’s ok to change plans when you grow as a person and learn new information, and there’s no reason to let fear and uncertainty get in the way. So no matter whether you’re finally pulling cash out of storage or considering a strategic portfolio change, let’s talk about how to plan a thoughtful financial transition.

Continue reading →

A Faith Not Tested Cannot Be Trusted

Beginner, Psychology

In July of this year NASA is planning to launch the next mission in their ongoing series of journeys to Mars. Named Perseverance, the robotic explorer is built on the successful design of the Curiosity rover that has been wandering the Red Planet since 2012. A machine capable of long-term exploration of another planet is a true engineering marvel, but controlling it remotely is not even the hard part. After decades of practice, even the requirements of launching devices out of the pull of Earth’s gravity are pretty well-known. But do you know what is still a real challenge even for the best rocket scientists?

Sticking the landing.

Continue reading →

The Top 4 Portfolios to Recession-Proof Your Investments

Beginner, Featured, Portfolios

Something must be in the financial water lately, as even the most bullish investors have started publicly expressing worry about the stock market finally reaching an unsustainable climax after more than a decade of record growth. With increased stock volatility, inverted yield curves, and global trade worries all making news, the economic tension is palpable to the point that the dreaded R-word is starting to get some significant buzz.

Are we headed for a recession?

Recessions get people worked up for a variety of reasons. For example, the events of 2008 decimated the stock market, cost scores of people their jobs, forced many leveraged buyers out of their homes, and nearly upended the entire financial system in the process. While there are many factors that contributed to that turmoil beyond the recession that came with it, it’s true that recessions tend to coincide with a lot of negative financial events. So it’s understandable that anyone who lived through the situation might be worried about a repeat and walking on eggshells given current market sentiment.

I’m not going to pretend that I have all of the answers for every problem associated with recessions, nor am I going to claim I have any idea when the next recession will start. But as a long-time student of portfolio history I’m in a pretty decent position to bring something to the table when it comes to how to structure your investments to weather the inevitable storm. So rather than just peddle in the typical doom and panic, let’s study something productive.

Which portfolios performed the best in recessions, and what can we learn from them?

Continue reading →

Find a Portfolio to Love

Beginner, Psychology

Growth is a wonderful thing. We all start somewhere and do the best we can, and over the years people learn, mature, and evolve into something even better. That applies to lots of things like relationships, careers, asset allocations, and even hobbies like this little Portfolio Charts endeavor. So in honor of the 4-year anniversary of the site I’ve decided to launch a new logo and tagline that I think celebrates its growth as a resource and captures its spirit and mission looking forward.

Find a portfolio to love

You see, the pages here may contain a lot of data and visualizations but the design intent goes so much deeper than that. Strip away the methods and focus on the goal, and there’s really one singular mission I have in mind — I want you to be a happy investor! It’s such a simple concept but it’s amazing how difficult it is for so many people to grasp, so let’s forget everything we think we know about investing and start from scratch.

What does it mean to love your portfolio?

Continue reading →

Should Index Investors Be Worried About Facebook?

Beginner

If you’ve been paying any attention at all to financial news this week, you’ve probably heard about the large 19% drop that Facebook experienced on Thursday.  Facebook is the fourth largest company in the US by market cap — behind only Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon — and the total loss amounts to a staggering $120 billion wiped out.  That’s easily the largest single day loss by one company in recent stock market history, and if you’re personally holding a lot of Facebook stock you’re probably not a happy camper.

But let’s say you’re more the index investor type than the individual stock picker.  Should you be worried?

Continue reading →

Financial Firewalls Defend Against Volatile Markets

Beginner

With the stock market recently dropping more than 10% in a short amount of time, I’ve noticed a lot of panic in financial circles.  Beyond the fairly steep short-term loss there’s also the fear that a much more painful long-term correction may finally be starting, and stock market investors are understandably on edge.

Do you worry that your life savings are about to catch fire and burn to the ground?  Setting aside what is causing the drop, whether it portends a major correction, or even whether you should be all that concerned about it in the long run, I’d like to focus for a moment on your very real anxiety and what you can absolutely do about it.

I’m personally not worried in the slightest, and it’s not because I’m some sort of investing robot who never gets upset.  It’s because I would not have known that there’s such a major stock correction from looking at my own account balances, as a panic-inducing drop just isn’t there.  While comparing relative portfolio performances over just a few weeks is pretty pointless, in this case it’s definitely not a matter of luck but of very deliberate structural portfolio planning.  When I invested my money, I took the time to build firewalls.  

Continue reading →

Understanding Cash Will Make You A Better And Happier Investor

Beginner, Featured

Investors have a real knack for over-thinking things.  There are those who imagine themselves as master traders controlling hundreds of variables at once like rocket scientists or professional sound mixers and squeezing out every last decimal of performance.  And of course there are inexperienced types who also imagine investing works like that but who lack the confidence to even start learning.  Personally I believe this complexity myth is disruptive to the well-being of both sets of people, and nowhere do I see this more than in the simplest of investing topics — cash.

Continue reading →

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Calculations

Beginner

Perhaps you’ve noticed the tag line for Portfolio Charts:

 

A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Calculations

 

While obviously a play on words to a common phrase that figuratively captures the descriptive power of images, some may not be aware that in the context of the site it is actually quite literal.  Lots and lots of calculations go into every image, and I thought it might be fun to illustrate just how deep the rabbit hole goes.  

Continue reading →

Black Friday Is A Good Day To Evaluate Your Expense Ratios

Beginner

Thanksgiving is maybe my favorite holiday of the year.  Between family, football, and an insane amount of delicious food, the fourth Thursday of every November is something I always look forward to.

But while the traditions of Thanksgiving are something I hold dear, the traditions of the day that follows are something I’ve never really gotten into.  Of course I’m talking about Black Friday, when shoppers get a day off of work to recover from eating too much and line up early in the morning to experience things like this in search of a good deal:

Continue reading →