Picture Credit: sevoo || I’m not dead yet…
In my view, these were my best posts written between August 2017 and January 2018:
The Crisis at the Tipping Point
A reprise of what some people knew in advance of the Great Financial Crisis. Includes a link to what I wrote 10 years earlier, where I got a lot right, and a lot wrong.
Wrong at least in the medium-run: Bitcoin. Right in the short-run: shorting the VIX, which blew up five months later.
The Many Virtues of Simplicity
Eight reasons why simplicity in investing works. Avoid anything that relies on options, or trading strategies. Buy and hold. Reduce turnover. Focus on quality.
Notes from an Unwelcome Future, Part 1
The best of the bunch, and my prediction that no effective action would happen with respect to Social Security has proven true so far. Seven years have burned away. Eight years until the crisis. The Greenspan Commission hosed Americans by raising “contribution rates” when it really didn’t need to do so. Nothing should have been done in the early 1980s, leaving the Social Security system to face insolvency in the mid-2000s decade. There could have been a reasonable reckoning then. As it is, we are still facing a train wreck in 2032, and Greenspan drained our pockets unnecessarily.
Cute idea, but it never saw the light of day. A way for mutual fund companies to reduce systemic risk, while allowing investors to make money during crises. On the other hand, maybe we should have some funds that pay on credit default swaps.
I get this question a lot. This is a specific answer to five questions a reader asked.
Since 1950, the S&P 500 in 2017 Ranks First, Fourth, Tenth or Twenty-third?
Written just before Volmageddon, I deal with factoids in the ultra-smooth 2017 market, and try to point out how “The Little Market that Could” was not as good as it was celebrated.
That’s all for now. I will put out some more posts, including “best of” posts in the short-run.