Latest WSJ Jason Zweig column.
I don’t see anything actionable here. I’m keeping 10-years worth of living expenses in cash and the other 98% of my portfolio in individual stocks and index funds.
intercst
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Same. (10 years in cash that is, not 98% in stocks!)
“Hetty Green, perhaps the first and among the greatest of all long-term investors, had lived stubbornly by her motto: “Never speculate in Wall Street.” In 1908 she recalled: “When the crash came I had money, and I was one of the very few who really had it. The others had their ‘securities’ and their ‘values.’ I had the cash, and they had to come to me.””
Berkshire seems to be doing the same.
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It’s great you plan to live 500 more years! I’m usually a glass half full person, but you’ve got me with this plan.
Pete
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The reality… history (and all the AI I attempted to bamboozle but found they were pretty sharp) – has told us… 2035+/- will be the next major generational mugging. (Hard to believe. Seems like 2000 was only yesterday) Generational wealth will be destroyed going back probably 15 to 30 years depending on conditions e.g. inflation vs deflation, how aggressive intervention attempts are. (They say there’s too much debt for those tricks to work now but… really…?)
I would be 78 in 2035. So why would I care and why should I care now? Only half my heart has been working since 2020 and I have just recently been diagnosed with non-hodgekins lymphoma. I am this close (indicating thumb and forefinger on right hand in a pinching motion) to just jettisoning everything now and simply going all cash. I’d still never run out of money.
My pension and SS covers everything with room to spare. I can just protect the stash for any late breaking events inside the 2 minute warning. Covering that outside chance of living to 95 (what we’re all doing this for) doesn’t seem worth it now. Five years tops, 10 yrs if I beat some sort of cosmic odds.
The larger glass indeed looks half empty if you have any foresight, but my cup runneth over. You don’t kill the bear any more dead with 2 bullets than you do with one. But I don’t want to pay all those taxes just to add gemutlichkeit to my investment scheme. Decisions… decisions…
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My plan isn’t to live 500 years. But if you’re a LTB&H investor, the inactivity is almost guaranteed to make you wealthy. Buffett and Bogle taught that for 50 years, but few believed it and thought that “hard work” was required. Only if you want to get poorer.
Also, I see a lot of financial advisors telling people that they should force themselves to “spend more money” and not let a large portfolio go to waste. If I’m currently doing 100% of the things that interest me at my current level of spending, why would I do the work to spend more? It makes no sense.
intercst
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@intercst we finally agree on something!
Part of my enjoyment is the feeling of stability. Why should I worry about stock market gyrations if my Social Security and bond income provide more than I need? Maximizing my return means less to me than minimizing my worry.
Wendy
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The man has only once mentioned that he would renegotiate the debt. The odds are rising that he will do just that.
Broken watches? Or forward-looking?
I don’t think those advisors are talking about people like you, me or intercst. I think that they are talking about a large number of people who pinch pennies all their lives until it becomes an extreme habit. The parents of a very good friend refused to pay for lawn care, nursing care, name brand food, new clothing, or expensive travel anywhere all their lives. When they died they were well into their nineties and left $millions to their children, one of whom is now in her 70’s, pinching pennies, and apparently planning to leave her money to her progeny.
Ispouse and I worked and saved for years, but now we are learning to spend and give away some of our excess money because we can. Often in very small ways. Expensive but fresh local produce from local farmers and farmers markets. A wonderful meal at a nice winery or restaurant that we could not afford earlier in our lives. A really nice carbon bicycle that I never would have bought when we were working, saving and raising our girls.
Just trying to find a happy medium. Some people appear not to own their money. Rather their money owns them because they either can’t save enough to be happy (my friends’ parents) or, on the other extreme, can’t have enough to be happy (Elon Musk, for example).
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Of course, if your net worth is large enough you can provide enough income and still have some left over to participate in equity growth.
DB2
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