In the past, I’ve talked about asset-liability matching. It’s a concept popular with insurance companies to manage investment risk. It’s a very formal approach and not one I would expect an individual investor to follow too literally. But it’s a notion that, in general, can help individuals make [...]
Gaining clarity
In the world of personal finance, a favorite quote comes from Ernest Hemingway. In The Sun Also Rises, a fellow asks a friend who is down on his luck, “How did you go bankrupt?” The friend replies: “Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.” Money troubles are a common theme throughout literature. [...]
Threading the needle
This week’s Mega Millions jackpot is projected to top $1 billion. Would you be happy if you won? Last week, I talked about the Vanderbilts. Once the wealthiest family in America, they saw their fortune dwindle because of aggressive spending. Back in the 1890s, for example, the family spent $7 [...]
How to manage a windfall
When Cornelius “Commodore” Vanderbilt died in 1877, he was by far the wealthiest American, with a fortune of $100 million. And in the ten years after Vanderbilt’s death, his son William succeeded in further doubling those assets. It was an astonishing level of wealth. But that’s precisely when [...]
Maintaining wealth
Recently, Wall Street Journal personal finance columnist Jason Zweig made this observation: Getting rich isn’t the hard part, he said. “Staying rich is the hard part.” On the surface, staying rich might actually seem like the easy part. After all, you simply need to build a balanced portfolio [...]
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