Tag Archive for: Business Owners

mountain peak with snow
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The Snowpack Principle

Every spring, Coloradans watch snowpack reports with unusual devotion. We know the water filling our rivers in July often arrives as snow in January. The mountains collect it, then release it gradually when the valleys below need it most. Generosity also works like this.
rows of crops on a farm

Your Portfolio Has Two Numbers — Are You Watching the Right One?

Imagine you own a productive farm. You’ve owned it for years, cared for the land, invested in equipment and watched its productivity rise. Every year, your farm yields a crop. The harvest varies each year, but over time, the crop and its income have grown. Now imagine that every morning, a stranger pulls into your driveway and offers to buy your farm.
man staring over edge of cliff

Retiring at Highs, Planning for Lows

As I write this column, the S&P500 is again hitting an all-time high. This isn’t unusual, all-time highs are much more common than they feel. But it leaves many near retirees with a nagging question: “What happens if I retire just before a bear market?”
man silhouetted climbing a mountain

The Business Beneath the Balance

There is an old saying on Wall Street that stocks climb a wall of worry. It persists for one simple reason: Investors constantly forget that markets do not require a peaceful world in order to advance. They require businesses capable of adapting, earning, innovating and growing … despite the worries.
assembly line at a factory

Automation + Innovation = Transformation

Automation allows people and businesses to do more with less. Innovation applies new ideas to create better products, processes and outcomes. When the two collaborate over time, entire industries change.
man sits alone at a table

The First Monday of Retirement

For many, retirement is an imagined finish line. A date circled on the calendar. A number on a statement. A moment when the alarm clock turns off for good and life finally begins to slow down. Every day becomes a Saturday! And then it arrives.
sand in an hourglass
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The Money Value of Time

Investors often learn about this critical principle in finance: the time value of money. But recently, I began thinking about this from the other direction. If there’s a time value of money, there’s also something I call the money value of time. In the long run, that may matter even more.
writing in a notebook
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Preparation Over Panic

When a top American business leader starts rattling off reasons to fear today’s market, investors get uneasy. But in the echo chamber of media-made doubt, Jamie Dimon’s recent message got lost. To prepare for the worst, he recommended beefing up reserves, fortifying capital, and stress-testing for varied shocks. He didn’t advise hiding under the nearest desk but rather putting in the work, preparing and carrying on.
VUCA by SketchplanationsSketchplanations
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The Antidote to Ambiguity

Toward the end of the Cold War, a new kind of landscape emerged — defined by turbulence, ambiguity and interconnection. In that moment, folks at the U.S. Army War College coined the term VUCA, an acronym for Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity.
two signs displaying "one way"
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The Certainty of Uncertainty

Remember that as investors, we are constantly on the precipice of uncertainty. We can never confidently know how anything will play out. No one can. So what should we do? With everything changing, we think we should be adapting. New circumstances require portfolio changes, right?
history in 5 crashes

The Telltale Signs of a Market Crash

As a student of markets, I believe history is a roadmap for the future. The past may not repeat, but it certainly tends to rhyme. So when I came across “A History of the United States in Five Crashes” by Scott Nation, I was hooked.
group photo of microsoft founders

The Bell-Bottom Billionaires

Being told in 1979 that two yet-to-be-founded companies would be worth more than the entire output of the U.S. economy would have sounded like science fiction. But this history offers a valuable reminder that the future is so big, it’s almost incomprehensible.
laptop sitting on a table in a coffee shop
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Don’t Just Own Shares: Share Ownership

Can you name five companies whose products or services you use almost daily? What top brands are your family members unable to live without? We consistently rely on — and budget for — these brands and businesses in our daily activities.
a person holding their glasses
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History Over Headlines

Perspective is in increasingly short supply right now. Business news and market commentary is ever focused on urgency. But good investor behavior requires thinking long-term, staying grounded, and resisting the belief that daily market machinations are important enough to warrant changes.
meeting mr market

Meeting Mr. Market

What would it look like to have a conversation with “The Market” (the embodiment of the S&P 500)? What knowledge might we learn from this nebulous thing if only we could ask it? Let's find out.