In Memoriam: Harry Markowitz

In Memoriam: Harry Markowitz

Harry Markowitz died last month. You probably didn’t hear about it in the traditional media sources. They tend to limit their obituaries to entertainment and sports stars, politicians, and other well-known personalities. Yet I contend that Markowitz has had a much greater impact on your life than practically any of those others. Markowitz was the…
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Is Bitcoin Almost Ready For Prime Time?

For many years the only way to purchase cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin has been through unregulated private exchanges. And investing in such digital assets has not been for the faint of heart. Aside from the extreme volatility of the assets themselves, the exchanges have suffered a number of high-profile failures. In 2022 alone Terraform, Celsius,…
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How To Safely Manage Debt

After dropping below $800 million at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, the total aggregate credit card balance in the U.S. soared to nearly one trillion dollars as of the end of March this year, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. That’s a new record high and does not bode well for…
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This Time Really Is Different!

How many times have you heard the phrase “This Time Is Different?” In the context of investing it usually means something fundamental has changed in the way capital markets operate. The implied consequence is that you can no longer rely on the way things worked in the past to make investment decisions about the future.…
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More Evidence Stock Picking Doesn’t Work

When it comes to equity investing, the difference between luck and skill is primarily a matter of consistency. If you choose to invest in a fund or ETF designed to passively track some stock market index you are practically guaranteed to get market returns. Of course you need to make sure to utilize funds that…
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Four Reasons To Avoid A Roth Conversion

For those unfamiliar with the term, a Roth conversion involves moving money from a tax-deferred traditional IRA (IRA) to a tax-free Roth IRA (Roth). You’ll pay taxes on the amount transferred but from that point on the amount will grow tax-free for the rest of your life (and even for ten years of a subsequent…
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