Author and Speaker
I owe so much of my investing curiosity to David Gardner, the co-founder of The Motley Fool. Each month on David’s podcast Rule Breaker Investing he responds to listener questions and emails in his Mailbag episodes. I reached out to David this month to pitch a small-cap company that I absolutely love called Xponential Fitness (ticker: XPOF). In my email, I took the company through David’s […]
Wow! What a crazy month! The biggest news of the month was the failure of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) after a bank run caused a liquidity crisis. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) stepped in to make depositors whole which likely averted a major crisis, for now. It is still unclear how widespread the banking issues may be. Watch here to learn more. SVB was not […]
Great places to work can also be great investment opportunities. In fact, I’d argue that happy employees likely correlate to these companies’ successes. Visual Capitalist created a chart demonstrating the best places to work according to Glassdoor over the past 5 years. The list of names is impressive.The public companies that stuck out the most to me were Hubspot (ticker: HUBS) and Nvidia (NVDA). […]
Significant changes to the tax law are coming with what is being billed as the Secure 2.0 Act. These tax changes will push required minimum distributions (RMDs) to age 75 for those born after 1960. The act will also allow 529 plans to be converted to a Roth account up to $35,000 if certain requirements are met. Read more here and here.The employee contribution to 401(k), 403(b), […]
One of my core investing beliefs is that EVERYONE can invest on their own. I also believe this can save individuals thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of dollars. Yet, I realized recently that I’ve never actually laid out the numbers behind that belief. Let’s dive in. How much will it generally cost you in fees if you invest in an actively managed mutual fund […]
Inflation has been the story of 2022. The Federal Reserve increased interest rates at an incredible fast rate. It’s hard to believe that less than a year ago homebuyers could get a sub-3% mortgage rate. 30-year loans would now expect a rate of 6-7%. This is just one part of the story, but it’s a huge slice of the economic pie and it seems […]
Whenever I talk about investing with someone, risk almost always comes up at some point. Investing can be risky especially in the short-term. Life is inherently risky which means that life can certainly teach us valuable lessons about investing especially around the concept of risk. Morgan Housel, one of my favorite authors and speakers, wrote a blog in 2020 about the most […]
On August 24th, the Biden administration announced a student loan debt relief program. I’m all about optimizing finances and not about talking politics. If you, or someone you know, has outstanding student debt or paid it off since March 2020, you will likely qualify for some forgiveness. Learn more at the the Federal Student Aid website. This is definitely time sensitive information so pass it along […]
Interest rates continue to rise as the Federal Reserve looks to combat inflation by slowing the economy. In both June and July the Federal Reserve raised the benchmark rates by 0.75% and hinted at more rate increases coming in the near future. What does this mean for you? Rising interest rates can affect you in many ways. Rising rates typically hit the housing market […]
The S&P 500 fell into a bear market in June, more than 20% off its January all-time highs. Investing through prolonged downturns can be painful. My personal portfolio is down WAY more than 20%. Historically, the best results come from continuing to invest throughout the painful times using dollar cost averaging. Making regular contributions month after month makes investing a habit and keeps you […]