Tag Archive for: Steve Booren

life board game pieces
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Playing Someone Else’s Game

Most investors don’t abandon a sound plan because it stopped working. More often, they get distracted by someone else’s results that seem better, faster or more exciting.
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A Market of Possibilities for 250 Years

We often measure history by wars, presidents, elections and crises. While those events are relevant and notable, another story runs parallel: that of free people asking a simple question on repeat. What is possible?
man stares up at advertising billboards

What Do You Own, and Why?

The greatest enemy of successful investing is not always inflation, recessions, elections, interest rates or even market declines. Often, it’s distraction: the shiny object promising an easier path; the belief in “something better” than patiently following a well-designed plan.
a woman leans on someones shoulder

There Is Still No Algorithm for Trust

AI raises an important question, especially for any business that offers advice: What can technology do, and what can it never truly replace? I believe technology can provide information, but a good advisor provides understanding.
man writing on paper
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Do You Want Advice, Agreement or Assurance?

I’ve held many versions of this same conversation over the years. Sometimes they genuinely seek perspective. Other times they want reassurance that everything will be all right. Sometimes they’ve already decided what they want to do and hope an advisor will simply reinforce that choice. Those are three very different conversations.
newspaper headline

While the World Worries, Progress Continues

Fear is understandable. People are not foolish for worrying about war, rising prices, political division or an unexpected event interrupting the retirement plan they spent decades building. Yet my nearly five decades in this business have taught me a critical lesson: Even understandable fears can drive damaging financial decisions.
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.
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When Complexity Looks Like Wisdom

Complexity often reassures many investors. Surely a system involving so many formulas, ratings, models and highly compensated experts must mean diminished the risk, right? The truth is often the opposite: Rather than remove risk, complexity simply disguises it.
man sitting along in a train car

From We to Me: The High Cost of Becoming One

There are few transitions in life more profound than moving from “we” to “me.” Whether through the passing of a spouse or a divorce, the change is emotional, financial, and deeply personal. For those approaching or already in retirement, this transition can be especially difficult.
question mark on a blank background

Why? What? How?

I believe it's valuable to step back from all of the political, financial market, and economic noise and ask ourselves some fundamental questions: Why am I investing? For what am I investing? How will I get there? The answers to these questions…
hand in a hospital bed with a blood pressure monitor

The Plans You Don’t Make

Most people think of financial planning as being solely tied to numbers. But a quiet assumption is built into nearly every person’s plan, whether they recognize it or not: They assume the future will cooperate. But life never has been, nor will it ever be, linear.
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When Investing Starts to Look Like Gambling

Not long ago, gambling largely remained in places designed for gambling. Today, those boundaries are fading. While greed is one motivating factor, I’ve often found another emotion equally to blame: anxiety.
jesse livermore

The Investors Who Disappeared

He was known as the “Great Bear of Wall Street,” Jesse Livermore was one of the best known investors of the early 1900s. But his story is not a happy one. It raises the uncomfortable question: How can someone be so right … and still not succeed?
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.
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The $12 Footlong

What does a typical meal cost today? Maybe $12 for a quick stop — or $15 if including a drink. Sit down somewhere nice, and you’ll owe closer to $20. Now fast forward 30 years. The $12 lunch — once only $5 — is headed toward $30.