I expect to be leaving an inheritance to my sons, and I’d rather give them some of it while I’m alive instead of waiting until after both my wife and I have passed away.  As the expression goes, I’d like to give some of the money with a warm hand instead of a cold one. I have no intention of sacrificing my own retirement happiness by giving away too much, but the roaring bull market since I retired in mid-2017 has made some giving possible.  Back then I thought stock prices were somewhat elevated, and I included a market decline in my investment projections to protect against adverse sequence-of-returns risk. Happily for me, a large market decline never happened.  In fact, the markets kept roaring for the most part.  As it turned out, I could have retired a few years earlier.  A large market decline in the near future is still one of several possibilities, but the gap between our spending and the money available is now large enough that we are quite safe.  ...

I’ve lost count of the number of real estate agents and mortgage brokers in Canada and the U.S. who’ve told me that right now is a fantastic time to buy a rental property.  Usually, they don’t own any rental properties themselves and have no plans to buy one now, but they’re sure that it would be a great time for me to buy. When I say that I’m not interested in using my capital to buy the part-time job of being a landlord, they tell me to hire a management company.  When I tell them I’ve heard from landlords that management companies soak up most or all of the profit from being a landlord, they usually give up on me. I guess my message here is that I’ve found a fairly short path to ending an uninvited sales pitch about real estate.  You’re welcome. Here are some short takes and some weekend reading: Robb Engen shows that TFSAs can be very useful for smoothing out life’s financial bumps without creating a big tax bill.  This gives you time for the necessary next step...

I find behavioural economics and other aspects of psychology interesting, but I often get lost between a study’s results and the conclusions people draw from these results.  A good example is the oft-repeated fact that most people believe they are above-average drivers.  I have no doubt that a large majority of people will consistently report that they are above-average drivers.  However, the tidy conclusion that these people are overconfident isn’t obvious to me. There is no single measure of the quality of a driver.  Imagine two brothers where one believes that it is crucial to observe the speed limit at all times, and the other believes it is prudent to always stay up with the flow of traffic to minimize relative speeds.  These standards of driving skill are in conflict, and each brother judges the other to be a poor driver.  Each brother believes he is the better driver based in part on his view of what makes a driver good. It may be that both brothers ...

I haven’t had many people ask me whether I’d consider hosting a podcast, but it’s come up enough to make me think about it.  I have some solid reasons for not doing a podcast: it’s way more work than I’m willing to do, and my voice isn’t good.  To illustrate the best reason, though, consider this hypothetical exchange: MJ : Welcome to the podcast, Dr. G. Guest : I’m happy to be here. MJ : Let’s get right to it.  Please describe your research interests. Guest : I work on retirement decumulation strategies, safe withdrawal rates, and risk levels of equities. MJ : From what data do you draw your conclusions? Guest : I use worldwide historical returns of stocks and bonds. MJ : How do you deal with the challenge that we don’t have enough historical return data to directly draw statistically significant conclusions? Guest : Uh … I perform simulations drawing from the available pool of data. MJ : So, you create seemingly plausible return histories to extrapolate from the small p...

In his book Bullshift: How Optimism Bias Threatens Your Finances , Certified Financial Planner and portfolio manager John De Goey makes a strong case that investors and their advisors have a bias for optimistic return expectations that leads them to take on too much risk.  However, his conviction that we are headed into a prolonged bear market shows similar overconfidence in the other direction.  Readers would do well to recognize that actual results could be anywhere between these extremes and plan accordingly. Problems in the financial advice industry The following examples of De Goey’s criticism of the financial advice industry are spot-on. “Investors often accept the advice of their advisers not because the logic put forward is so compelling but because it is based on a viewpoint that everyone seems to prefer. People simply want happy explanations to be true and are more likely to act if they buy into the happy ending being promised.”  We prefer to work with those who...

My portfolio lost 4.9% in 2022, while my benchmark return was a loss of 6.2%.  This small gap came from my decision to shift to bonds based on a formula using the blended Cyclically-Adjusted Price-to-Earnings (CAPE) ratio of the world’s stocks .  After deciding on this CAPE-based approach, all the portfolio adjustments were decided by a spreadsheet, not my own hunches.  I started the year 20% in fixed income, it grew to a high of 27% as the spreadsheet told me to sell stocks, and now it’s back to 20% after the spreadsheet said to buy back stocks.  This cut my losses in 2022 by 1.3 percentage points. My return also looks good compared to most stock/bond portfolios because I avoided the rout in long-term bonds.  My fixed income consists of high-interest savings accounts (not at big banks), a couple of GICs, and short-term bonds.  If long-term bonds ever look attractive enough, I may choose to own them.  My thinking for now is that I prefer the safe part ...

What a difference a year makes.  During the COVID-19 lockdowns, many people saved a lot of money, either from their pay (if they were lucky enough to keep their jobs) or from government payments.  As the world opened up, people started spending this money and businesses couldn’t keep up.  These businesses still can’t get all the new employees they want but the problem has eased considerably compared to a year ago.  I saw a small example in Florida recently.  I was in a burger chain restaurant and saw a sign saying they were looking for employees at $12 per hour.  Last March, the sign in this same restaurant offered $18 per hour and implored workers to “START RIGHT NOW!” Here are some short takes and some weekend reading: Cliff Asness accuses private equity investors and managers of “volatility laundering.”  Failing to value private equity frequently and accurately creates the illusion of smooth returns. Scotiabank’s new President and CEO Scott Thomson...