Back on Wednesday, July 31st, 2019, the Federal Reserve lowered the federal funds rate for the first time in eleven years. In future articles, I will discuss why I find this move and its timing peculiar. For now though, I wanted to lay out some short-term implications and how I think this impacts the economy. […]
Personal Capital is an online platform offering net worth and spending tracking, financial advice, and personal wealth management. This Personal Capital review will cover all the important parts of using the service in 2019 - from tracking to projecting your retirement success. Personal Capital's primary benefits include a detailed view of your portfolio's performance versus […]
At DQYDJ, tax season has us recently rolling out our annual savings rate. The personal finance blogosphere constantly emphasizes its importance and demonstrates its impact on your ability to increase your net worth. It also helps show what you might reasonably expect to need to spend if you choose to retire. What's My Savings Rate? […]
In honor of tax season, we at DQYDJ annually post savings rate and asset allocation summaries. Unfortunately, I find mine particularly boring. I am young enough and have enough time left in the market that it has pretty much become throw it all in stocks and wait. Because of that (and that I've been at […]
When viewed on a linear scale over a long enough time period, large American Stock Index graphs look almost vertical. Drops look crazy steep. The 1987 crash is nearly a blip on the map while the 2008 crash appears (correctly) to be the largest, quickest downfall in the past 40 years. What incorrect decisions do […]
The S&P 500 and the broader equity markets continue to outperform and have seen annual inflation-adjusted 15.8% returns from March 2009 through the end of December 2017. More recently, from November 2016 to January 2017, the S&P 500 has returned 22.3% in total. Annual S&P 500 Returns Vary Wildly I started with each year's inflation […]
Hurricane Harvey made landfall in Texas last Wednesday, dumping more than forty inches of rain on much of Southern Texas. Our hearts go out to those affected by the disaster and recommend donating to the Houston Food bank. In the aftermath of Harvey, we have seen great displays of courage and compassion as the humanitarian […]
Humans have an evolutionary incentive to recognize patterns. The same mechanisms that helped early humans avoid snakes and other predators are still part of our constitution today. One of our in-built biases is the human tendency to see patterns where none exist. Clustering illusion is our bias towards under-predicting the variability of random – or […]
Anchoring or the Anchoring Bias is the human tendency to evaluate or "anchor" numbers based on their presentation. Observers and participants are usually swayed by the availability or recency of a number. The human tendency towards anchoring bias is often exploited to make subsequent facts or numbers appear in a certain light. Beware the Anchoring […]
The Dunning-Kruger effect refers to the phenomena where people of low ability have a higher self-perception of their abilities than those of high ability. This has been reproduced in laboratory sessions time after time. Human self-assessments are highly flawed. And this effect has massive social implications: confidence matters in all spheres of life, including job […]
