Michael Batnick says he knew from the start that direct indexing was going to transform his firm, New York City-based Ritholtz Wealth Management, where he is director of research. When CEO Josh Brown “and I saw this, I said to him, ‘The next billion dollars that we raise is going to be in this thing.’ […]

Saturdays are the day we catch up with all the non-finance related items that we didn’t get to during the week. You can check out last week’s edition here. Have a great weekend! Quote of the Day “Covid-19 should also teach us that resolving a problem with technology may be easier than resolving it with […]

A coronavirus pandemic linkfest is now a weekly feature here on Abnormal Returns. Please stay safe and find a vaccination site near you. You can read last week’s edition here. Quote of the Day “As I look back over the past year, I am amazed by the advances in science that led to vaccine development […]

A recent WSJ piece entitled, If You Sell Your House, The Buyer Might Be A Pension Fund, caused some commotion. The article highlighted how competition is heating up for single family homes due to demand from institutional real estate investors. When I read the article, I was surprised to see Fundrise mentioned in the second […]

[Editor’s Note: Today’s WCI Network post by The Physician Philosopher discusses the relationship between income, spending, and happiness. YOLO applies both ways—yes, you may die young, but you also may live a long time and you only get one chance to not screw up your finances. The post also reminds me a bit of a […]

Executive Summary Enjoy the current installment of “Weekend Reading For Financial Planners” – this week’s edition kicks off with a look at President Biden’s newly proposed infrastructure plan, which may inject as much as $2.3T into the economy to tackle long-standing infrastructure projects that have long had bipartisan support… but still faces criticism from both […]

Rest in peace Earl Simmons 😢

Quote of the Day “If you rely on an arbitrary and meaningless time period…the results you’ll get will be somewhere between arbitrary and meaningless.” (David Snowball) Chart of the Day The VIX hasn’t been this low in well over a year. (compoundadvisors.com) Markets Crypto Companies Finance Chips Funds Housing Work Earlier on Abnormal Returns Mixed […]

Fridays are all about podcast links here at Abnormal Returns. You can check out last week’s links including a look at the new creator economy. Venture Episodes

Peter Boockvar on commodity prices… Here’s an update on commodity prices. The CRB raw industrials index closed yesterday at just under a 10 year high. The CRB food index closed at an 8 year high. CRB Raw Industrials Index CRB Food Price Index Josh here – Inflation protection is on everyone’s minds right now. It’s […]

Q. I Am Tired of Paying Taxes and I Hear There Are Tax-Free Investments Out There. What Are They, and Should I Use Them? Many physicians are heavily taxed, so it is no surprise you are looking for ways to invest that do not increase your tax burden. However, it is critical that you pay […]

Here are some things I think I am thinking about: Is the Housing Market a Bubble (Again)? I’m starting to see a lot of chatter about a housing bubble 2.0. So I went on Twitter and asked people what they thought. There were tons of smart responses if you want to review them. Ben Carlson […]

Determining the sustainable spending rate from a diversified investment portfolio in retirement requires making decisions about longevity and market returns. The final section in this chapter provides an opportunity to integrate this discussion in order to obtain a better sense about sustainable distributions from an investment portfolio in retirement. Rather than blindly applying something like […]

In my time as a financial advisor, I’ve had quite a few self-employed clients in a variety of industries. Along the way, I’ve learned what my clients need when they decide to start a business.  For those that are looking to transition from full-time employment to self-employment, we usually go through a process like this: […]

Quote of the Day “Diversification may occasionally fall out of favor, but it will never go out of style.” (Phil Huber) Chart of the Day Why isn’t gold performing better? (chart via @ycharts) (nytimes.com) Crypto Finance Funds Economy Earlier on Abnormal Returns Mixed media

As the wealth gap continues to widen, it may be beneficial to learn how to convince people you are middle class when you’re actually rich. Otherwise, you might become target enemy number one when the revolution comes! To get things out of the way, I feel rich. Not only do I feel rich, but I […]

Thursdays are all about longform links on Abnormal Returns. You can check out last week’s linkfest including a look at the high (psychological) costs of permanent remote work. Quote of the Day “While the NFT party is going, one can hardly begrudge people who turn up as buyers and sellers, so long as they know […]

Watch above and make sure you’re subscribed to the channel 🙂 Check out more from JC Parets at AllStarCharts.com http://go.ycharts.com/compound Standard disclaimer

Executive Summary If there’s one thing that just about every financial advisor can agree upon, it’s that surviving the first few years in the advice business is very difficult. As a result, there’s a natural tendency for newer advisors to not be terribly picky about who they take on as clients, as getting any new […]

Picture Credit: Rachel Maddow / Kevin Perez || Deepwater Horizon was a preventable accident created by neglect on the part of BP and Transocean. This is an example of neglecting risk control. If it were in the public domain, I would have put a picture of Bill Hwang at the top of this post. My […]

Podcast #205 Show Notes: Understanding Required Minimum Distributions A lot of people have this fear of required minimum distributions. Understanding how RMDs work is important but you don’t need to fear the future taxes. One listener was concerned that they would end up losing money in retirement because not enough time and effort was spent […]

Quote of the Day “The most important question to ask with bubbles is not whether we are in one at any given time. The question to ask is “Even if I told you that we were, is there a strategy you can pursue to improve your returns relative to a buy and hold approach?” (Jack […]

Wednesdays are all about personal finance here at Abnormal Returns. You can check out last week’s links including a look at what it takes to be considered wealthy today in America. Quote of the Day “The truth is that even for a guy who’s spent a vast majority of his waking hours helping others imagine […]

As a long-term shareholder (and customer) of JPMorgan Chase, I never missed Jamie Dimon’s annual letter. I wrote about fintech disrupting banks this week, you can read it here. Jamie covers this idea at length in his letter… Dear Fellow Shareholders, 2020 was an extraordinary year by any measure. It was a year of a […]

Executive Summary When it comes to navigating the world and understanding our surroundings, abstraction (i.e., the process of extracting the higher-level essence of something to formulate general ideas of concepts) is very important. We are constantly formulating and updating mental maps of our world for the purpose of carrying out goals. Abstraction is particularly relevant […]

[Editor’s Note: Today’s guest post is written by D.K. Unger with DI4MDS. DI4MDS  is an advertiser on the site and has contributed posts on the topic of disability insurance for active-duty military in the past.] Reservists who require an income to achieve their financial goals have the same need for disability insurance until retirement. All […]

Subscribe! Join Downtown Josh Brown and Michael Batnick for another round of What Are Your Thoughts? On this week’s episode, Josh and Michael discuss the biggest topics in investing and finance, including: ►Instagram Is Facebook – What if Instagram financials were broken out or a spinoff was attempted? ►Too Much Supply – About 300 SPACs […]

Quote of the Day “The only thing that should matter is considering how the addition of an asset class impacts the risk and return of the entire portfolio.” (Larry Swedroe) Chart of the Day Barry Ritholtz, “Whenever someone starts talking about the dollar, your go to move should be to view the data.” (chart via […]

Let’s say the next black swan event isn’t a pandemic, but a zombie apocalypse. Or maybe World War III breaks out due to a fight for scarce resources. Clearly, instead of venturing out into the wild, we all need to find the easiest way to make money from home! The pandemic has been a little […]

Tuesdays are all about academic (and practitioner) literature at Abnormal Returns. You can check out last week’s links including a look at why hedge fund managers may engage in ‘greenwashing.’ Quote of the Day “Momentum is without question one of the most robust investing factors. It is hard to argue with the long-term data that […]

Packy McCormick’s substack letter has become must-read for me every week. He started it at the beginning of the pandemic last March and has since grown to more than 42,000 subscribers. He’s writing about some of the most important technologies, trends, companies and concepts that all investors need to become familiar with. But most importantly, […]

Executive Summary Welcome back to the 223rd episode of Financial Advisor Success Podcast! My guest on today’s podcast is Marianela Collado. Marianela is the CEO and majority shareholder of Tobias Financial Advisors, an independent RIA based in Plantation, FL, that services over $500 million of assets for just under 300 households. What’s unique about Marianela, […]

Chris Davis is a famed value investor and a high conviction bull on large bank stocks pretty much all the time. He reasons that the purported existential threat from disruptive technology is overblown. I am on the other side of this debate. Putting aside all the SPACs and startups and other new lenders / trading […]