The Transparent Advisor

I got my COVID vaccine last Sunday (10 days ago).  J&J, 1 shot.  It was exactly like any other vaccine I've ever gotten.   I don't know what's going on everywhere else in the world, but Aspirus-Wausau was packed.  The process was simple, fast, and easy.  They really seemed to have their shit together.   Springtime is here, and I have complete confidence that "normal" is back as of now. Not because I got my shot, but because so many people are getting them so rapidly.  There is more than just a light at the end of the tunnel.  We're right there.  News outlets will try to hold onto this story for a several more weeks or months because it's been a golden goose for ratings, but there's no news here anymore.  That's not to say that masks and social distancing don't still matter, but economically, it's mostly a matter of rehiring and getting supply chains caught up to pent-up demand. There's been some fairly extreme speculation going on i

  by Danno Jack Bogle, founder of Vanguard, is most famous for "inventing" the index fund.  While he may have introduced the first publicly available index mutual fund, it's certainly not as if he invented the idea of an index. Forever ago conventional wisdom was that you paid a fund manager to pick stocks for you.  Fund managers could make huge sums of money selling this message, and so could the stockbrokers who sold the story of some fund manager's recent performance.  It was a salesman's paradise.   As recordkeeping improved and data accumulated, the math guys started stepping in.  In January 1960 Edward Renshaw and Paul Feldstein published  The Case for an Unmanaged Investment Company  in the Financial Analysts Journal... indexing.   At the time, actively managed mutual funds ruled the land... stock pickers.    As you can imagine, they didn't appreciate the idea of their jobs being worthless.  In the May 1960 edition of the Financial Analysts Journal, Joh

A good friend reminded me last week that I need to "zoom out", throwing one of my favorite phrases back in my face. It's so easy in today's world to get caught up in the minute-by-minute, hour-by-hour, day-to-day action.  On the TV, on Twitter, on Facebook, on the internet generally.  Things are moving faster than they were a few years ago, but this has been true for a hundred years.  I feel like I need to be tuned in because I have a responsibility to my clients to be informed, and to some extent that's true.  But "tuned in" to what?  The daily news and price action in Tesla stock?  What does that have to do with investing for the long-term? While on the one hand the volume of content has grown exponentially, the quality and value of the content has gone the other way.  Nowhere is that more true than in financial markets.  Every once in awhile I have to remind myself (or be reminded by someone else) to zoom out.  To focus on a longer timeframe.  To turn

  It's been a tumultuous first 2 months of 2021, in public health, in the markets, and in politics.  Now all eyes are turning toward the economic "reopening".  Hopefully supply chains can quickly catch up to the pent up demand, and we can all be back in a more peaceful place as we turn the corner into Spring.   I'm confident that I'm not the only one looking forward to getting back to my "real" life... Here are 5 good reads from the past week or so: ...Illusions of Control...  by Tony Isola Why Your Smartphone is Likely Your Enemy When it Comes to Investing  by Carla Fried Have Fun Staying Poor  by Nick Maggiulli The Fourth Law of the Internet  by Myles Udland Foiling Mr. Market  by Jon at novelinvestor.com Have a great week. ~Danno  Legal Disclosure:  This is not Investment Advice.  The commentary on  thetransparentadvisor.com  reflects the personal opinions, viewpoints, analyses, and often sarcasm of Danno Hoff and should not be regarded as a descripti