I spent this morning cleaning out and cleaning up my 2009 Honda Accord. After 15 years, I will pass her on to a new owner later this week. I honestly thought this day would never come, and that I would drive her until the end. But the choice of inheriting my brother’s Toyota 4Runner was too emotional to pass on. Luckily, she’s not going far. I hope she will be as wonderful to the friend who is purchasing her as she was to me.

When I moved to New Orleans in early 2011, I needed a car for the first time in many years. I had relocated from New York City, one of the few cities in America with a real public transit system. I had no income. I was living on my meager retirement savings while I attempted to start an advisory firm from scratch. I used some of my precious savings for a down payment and borrowed the rest through a six-year auto loan. The monthly payment was under $200. It was all I could afford. I paid that loan off early, by the way.

The Honda was two years old when I bought her, with 42,000 miles on the odometer. I’ve since put slightly more than 100,000 additional miles. I thought I’d drive her to 200,000. We never went far. She was mostly a city car, shuttling me less than 3 miles a day between work and, eventually, my children’s daycares and schools. My husband’s SUV became the family's road-trip car, with its third bench and room for the dogs. I joke that I can’t remember the price of gas the last time I filled her up because a tank lasts me more than a month.

She’s been my car through many of life’s greatest milestones. I went from single to married with her. I rose from being a starving solopreneur to CIO of a local advisory firm to shareholder at Ritholtz with her. When my son was born, I plugged a car seat in the back. Three years later, I added a second car seat when my daughter was born. My son has since graduated from a car seat to a booster, and now he doesn’t need either. I told him the Honda might be his first car when he starts driving, an idea that made his face beam.

I admit there have been times over the years when I was nervous about arriving in the Honda. She’s a car that doesn’t match the social expectations of what kind of car I should drive. My colleague Alan told me he was a little surprised to learn I drove such an old, non-luxury vehicle. My parents were always suggesting I purchase the cars of other family members who were upgrading. Each time, I politely declined.

The Honda has been the most reliable car I’ve ever owned. She never needed more than regular oil changes, a new battery, or a new set of tires every 40,000 miles. Even the time she flashed the check engine light late one evening when I was returning home from a post-Jazz Fest concert, the repair was less than $500.

I am not a car person. For me, a car is simply a machine to take me from one place to another. I prefer to spend more in practically every other category of my budget; my house, good food, travel, and experiences. When I hear that the average car payment has surpassed $1,000 a month, I can’t imagine that being a normal part of my life. That’s not to say I don’t understand those who do love cars. But I have many other things I want to spend money on first.

I am reminded of the time my friend and fellow financial advisor, Jude Boudreaux, spoke to the New York Times about his decision to live in a condo to spend more on other areas of his life. Being intentional about spending makes budgeting easy. In order to do that, you have to break the cycle of going along with the crowd. Ask yourself, do I need to …… (enter your choice here)?

• Drive a new or luxury vehicle?

• Live in this house / this neighborhood / this high-cost area?

• Color my hair / get regular manicures / use Botox / have cosmetic surgery?

• Visit this expensive resort?

• Own versus rent?

• Choose this brand of clothing / shoes / handbag?

It’s an interesting exercise, and one we often forget as we go through the motions of life. We tend to follow the lead of those around us. But it’s worth asking, what type of spending brings you the most joy? Money is a tool. It can buy us money things, but for most of us, it is not an infinite resource.

The Honda has zero bells and whistles that have become common in modern cars. She does not connect to Bluetooth, but she has a single CD player. She doesn’t have a camera on the back, which means I still know how to parallel park unassisted. She has no alarm to warn me that another vehicle is passing on my left or sitting in my blind spot. I still have to turn my head around. My children have learned to live with whatever song is on the radio and that commercial breaks exist. I am grateful to have lived in this time machine for the past 15 years.

Don’t worry, I haven’t changed my stripes. You can find me, hopefully, driving a 2024 Toyota 4Runner for the next 100,000 miles.

The Belle Curve is a blog about personal finance, specifically from a female perspective. I cover markets, saving, investing, financial planning, and related topics. Since many of you are new, and this blog will turn 8 years old in 2026, I’ve curated a short list of past greatest hits to share with you this year. I’ll share one repost each month, which I hope will give you a flavor for where I’ve been as a writer, planner, and advisor.

First up is an early post that earned me plenty of hate mail. Life insurance agents tried calling the main line at my firm to have a word with me. It touched a nerve. Re-reading it today, I stand by every word, and I was recently reminded that life insurance agents are still out there selling expensive life insurance policies to people who do not need them. Just ask the 30-something professional with no plans to have children whom I spoke to last month!

Life Insurance is Not for Saving

September 4, 2018

Stop buying life insurance as a savings strategy. Stop buying it as a tax-deferral vehicle for retirement savings. Stop spending thousands of dollars a month on life insurance premiums, at least until you read the rest of this post.

Life insurance is not a retirement savings strategy.

Why do we buy life insurance?

A person should buy life insurance, generally speaking, for one reason: because there will be a financial impact on his business or family were they to die.

– Jonathan Novy, Investment Advisor at Ritholtz Wealth

Typically, your insurance need is high early in life, when you have many working years ahead. The insurance need declines over time, ultimately reducing to zero at some point prior to retirement. This insurance need curve lends itself elegantly to term life insurance. Term insurance, as the name implies, lasts for a certain term; such as 10, 20, or 30 years. Term insurance is the cheapest option because insurance companies know that many of the policy owners will outlive their term and the insurance company will not have to pay the death benefit.

Enter the life insurance agent. Here we have a thoroughbred salesperson who is incentivized to sell as many life insurance contracts as he can. He is trained to offer a rebuttal to every objection. Term life insurance is cheap, which means the sales commissions are low. No insurance agent can make a living selling term policies alone. Therefore, he has a million reasons you should buy whole life, variable universal life, and other forms of cash value life insurance.

Let’s look under the hood of a permanent life insurance policy. First, there is the underlying cost of insurance. This is akin to the premium you pay for term insurance. While you are young, this cost is low, but as you age, the price of insurance grows. This matters when you access your “tax free retirement savings” later through policy loans. Even when the policy is “paid up”, and you don’t owe premiums, the cost of insurance is charged against the policy. This matters if the annual dividend drops below the cost of insurance, and it’s one of the reasons that policies crater and lapse.

But the cash value grows tax-deferred!

This is true, but life insurance is one of the most expensive ways to “invest”. Whole life policies pay low to mid-single digit dividends. All types of policies add the cost of insurance, selling and administrative expenses, and a host of additional riders to the total cost. If you’ve ever looked at a whole life illustration, you probably noticed it takes ten or more years to break even with the premiums paid. Variable policies are riskier. The first few years of market returns can make or break a variable policy. If market returns are negative, you may end up paying higher premiums later to keep the same death benefit. What a nightmare.

But cash value can be withdrawn tax-free in retirement!

This is partially true. The premiums you paid in can be withdrawn tax-free, but to access the growth, you must take a loan against the policy. You are now paying interest on a loan inside the policy at the same time the cost of insurance is rising. This combination can be deadly if costs over run the dividends and cash value available to pay these costs. The policy owner now needs to repay the loan and/or pay additional premiums to keep the policy in force. When you die, the loan balance is subtracted from the death benefit. Remind me again why we bought this policy?

Permanent life insurance is expensive. When faced with a budget crunch such as a job loss, healthcare expenses, or college tuition, life insurance premiums are often the first item to cut. Suddenly, the “forced saving” mechanism thought to be helpful becomes a burden. That rosy cash value projection withers to dust.

These are valid reasons to buy permanent life insurance:

• You have an estate larger than the Federal (or State) estate tax exemption, and you want to provide your heirs with liquidity to pay the tax

• You have dependents who need more than the assets you can pass down to them to survive

• You are looking to shift assets outside of your taxable estate to pass to your heirs

• Your partners want to fund the purchase of your share of a privately held business upon your death

I may have missed a few, but you will notice that savings is not in the list. If your goal is to save for college, or retirement, or anything else, there are less expensive and more flexible ways to do so. Just say no to expensive permanent life insurance policies that you don’t need.

The post Life Insurance is Not for Saving appeared first on The Belle Curve.

My little brother, my only sibling, my beautiful little brother, Bill Hodgson, Jr., died last week. He lost his long battle with alcoholism. It was a battle he fought hard and desperately wanted to overcome. That’s the only thing I will write about his disease. He fought it with every fiber of his being to the bitter end. He wanted to win.

Bill was born when I was three. He arrived two days before Easter that year. Family legend says that I visited him in the hospital and then immediately demanded that my mother “leave that baby here and come home with me.” In truth, I don’t think my transition from being an only child to an older sister was all that difficult for me.

My earliest memories of Bill were of us physically fighting each other as little kids. It wasn’t that we disliked each other. I think this was pure mammalian child behavior. Being older and bigger, I usually won, sending Bill crying to my parents to tell on me. One day, we looked at each other and decided to stop fighting. Instead, we became best friends, teammates on a quest against the discipline and rules set by our parents. We couldn’t understand why we had to clean up our messes, sit still, or be quiet. There was a world full of adventures to explore.

Our childhood was filled with so many amazing memories. Bill would be better at describing them as he had a photographic memory. He could tell me what color shirt I wore to my dance recital in May 1993. He never forgot a detail. I have no idea how he had room to hold all of those things in his mind.

In the summers, we spent every weekend at Lake Martin. I was a skier, but Bill was into the up-and-coming sport of wakeboarding. Before fancy boats threw massive wakes, he could jump so high in the air on his board. We spent hours pulling him behind the boat to practice. We also had adventures traveling up the dirt road to visit the neighbors, playing paintball in their yard, and hiking to the back of the creek. Lake Martin is still my favorite place on Earth, and it was Bill’s as well.

Every spring break, we took a family trip out west to go snow skiing, as we Southerners call it. Bill was a speed demon on skis and never missed a chance to ski off in the trees and find jump spots. I remember a time he fell in deep powder next to a tree, and we had to rescue him by digging him out. In his early adult years, Bill spent an entire season in Big Sky, Montana, working as a bellhop at one of the resorts. It was then that he became a truly expert skier. I wish I could have seen him ski like that.

During my last year of high school, my dad took on a new hobby that soon became a family hobby: deep-sea fishing. Our first trip was on a charter boat where we were immediately hooked. Pulling red snapper, grouper, and Amberjack out of the Gulf of Mexico was a thrill we had no idea we were missing. Dad eventually bought a small boat, and our family odyssey began. First, we explored every public fishing reef on the map. Later, we obtained the coordinates of private reefs shared among friends. The boats got bigger, and our trips went farther. June became our annual pilgrimage to the Gulf at the start of red snapper season.

Bill loved those fishing trips. I never asked him, but I imagine he felt at peace out there on the ocean with no land in sight. I certainly did. What I would give to go fishing with Bill one more time.

Bill introduced me to my husband. They were fraternity brothers at Ole Miss. My husband was literally assigned to be Bill’s big brother in the group. In that way, I owe literally everything I have, my family, my children, to Bill. Bill loved being an uncle, and he loved my children, his niece and nephew, more than anything. He was my son’s godfather, a testament to how much I believed in him.

Bill loved to cook for people. He also loved good food. He was always taking photos of his plate at restaurants. He wanted to remember his favorite dishes. Bill took immense pride in grilling meat for the perfect amount of time at the ideal temperature, with the perfect blend of seasoning. I noticed that he only did this at times when he had a crowd to cook for. It was one of the many ways he showed his love.

Several years ago, Bill helped us start a new family tradition in the form of an Easter crawfish boil. Not a native Louisianan, Bill studied the recipes and techniques for achieving the perfect boil. The stakes were high with a crowd of locals, and Bill nailed it. He has served as the unofficial host of the Easter crawfish boil every year, putting in countless hours to the preparations, execution, and clean-up.

Bill loved his family more than anything. He wanted to be with his family for every birthday and holiday, even the small ones like Memorial Day and Labor Day. He couldn’t stand to miss one. He remembered to call or text every family member, even aunts, uncles, and cousins, on their birthdays and anniversaries. He was always better at keeping in touch than I was.

There could never be enough words to do Bill justice. He had a heart of gold and an immeasurable amount of love to give. With him, a part of me has also died. His life, our relationship, and now his memory are among my greatest blessings. Thank you, Bill, for everything.

This was a fascinating topic, and I hope you will enjoy the replay. Stay tuned for future debates in 2026.

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The legend of the Leprechaun was burned into my brain as the box stared at me from across the counter. At the end of every rainbow, there was a magical pot of gold, if only you could find it.

Green clover, purple horseshoe, red balloon, pink heart, rainbow, orange star, pot of gold, and blue moon were the magical, lucky charms of Lucky the Leprechaun in the early ‘90s.

Like a child learning the truth about the pot of gold, I often find myself deflating the dreams of investors. “Why can’t we just own the stocks that are doing the best in my portfolio?” is a question I was asked recently. If only it were that easy.

One of the downsides to investing in the 21st century is having all the data immediately available. We can scan the market to identify which stocks were the top performers last year, last month, last week, and yesterday. If only we had owned those and nothing else.

Markets are a strange mix of human behavior and financial and economic data. There are some truths about investing; however, that seem to hold up almost like the laws of physics. Here are a few.

No risk, No Reward

There is no free lunch in investing. You have to to take risk to earn returns. That risk is not visible at all times, nor is it evenly distributed across your portfolio. Risk also takes various forms. It can be defined as the risk of loss of principal, price volatilty, loss of purchasing power, and underperformance relative to a benchmark, to name a few.

While risk and return are related, taking risk does not guarantee a return. Far from it. Taking more risk widens to possibly of outcomes, from very high to very low. Reducing risk narrows outcomes at both ends. It is possible to take an extremely risky bet and lose it all, just as it is possible to take a very risky bet and earn astronomical returns.

While we are having this discussion, it’s important to point that there are no “risk free” solutions for investing. Cash loses value through purchasing power, and cash under the mattress is easily stolen, lost, or burned in a fire.

TLDR: Risk is required.

You Cannot Have Your Cake and Eat it Too

Why not own stocks when the market is going up, but move to cash or bonds when the market is going down?

There are trend-following strategies that attempt to time to market. They are imperfect, flawed but often directionally correct. All are impossible for a human being with emotions to follow over the long-term. At best, you can pair a trend-following strategy with a long-term buy-and-hold portfolio. But do not expect magical results and be prepared for constant disappointment when trends whipsaw the portfolio back and forth through multiple losing trades.

If you are approached by a financial sales person with a strategy that seems too good to be true. It is. Period. Walk away.

Stairs Up, Elevator Down

I have no scientific basis for this phenomena. Stocks tend to creep slowly forward, making new all-time highs along the way. But when stocks drop, they drop fast. Days, weeks, or months of gains can be lost in a few trading days. I often joke that gravity has a hold of markets. In reality this is human nature in action. Everyone runs for the exit of a falling market at the same time.

No Crystal Balls

I keep a Magic 8-Ball in my office to remind me that no one can predict the future. Sadly, there are no crystal balls. For all the chart-gazing and data mining we do as analysts, nothing in that data can tell us what will happen tomorrow.

We can learn from the past, sure. We can make educated guesses about the future. We can study how investors are valuing parts of the market and hypothesize about next quarter’s growth in earnings and whether or not that growth will exceed investor expectations. We can memorize every data point in a company filing and every word uttered by management on the quarterly call. We can run billions of data points through AI simulations.

None of this will help predict the future. No one predicted a global pandemic in 2020. Even if we had known about the pandemic, no one could have guessed that markets would reverse a 35% drop to end the year up 20% because the government fired a bazooka of stimulus dollars to prevent an economic collapse.

But the Magic 8-Ball will answer any Yes or No questions you might have.

Compunding Returns

Now that I have properly deflated your optimistic views of finding the secret to beating the market. Allow me to leave you with something achievable that is truly awesome - the magic of compounding returns.

That’s right my friends. As your investments grow via interest, dividends, and price appreciation, you will start to earn returns on top of your returns. Slowly, over many years and multiple decades, these extra return begin to compound.

$1,000 invested in the S&P 500 Index in December of 1975 would have grown to $280,000 today if dividends were reinvested.

A recent college gradute in 1975, would be 72 years old today, hopfully enjoying a healthy retirement, having saved and invested consistently over that time. You can run your own calculations on Nick’s blog using Robert Shiller’s total return calculator. Spoiler alert - there are no 25+ year time-frames with negative returns.

So take heart. You don’t need the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow to succeed at long-term investing. You need only to stop looking for what doesn’t exist.

Here are some of the many hats I wear in my day-to-day work as a financial advisor.

The Mirror

Sometimes I am a mirror, helping to reflect the client’s words back in a more digestible format. People want to be heard and to be understood. The most essential skill for a financial advisor is learning to remain quiet and to listen. In recent years, I have adopted a practice of allowing time for silence after a client stops speaking. The silence invites them to share more. What is shared after a few seconds of silence, often, is the most important thing, but you have to wait for it.

In the role of a mirror, I will summarize what I have heard a client say in my own words, and then ask for clarification. This allows the client to correct anything I may have misunderstood and to add more to the topic.

The Sponge

There are also times when clients need me to be a sponge and absorb what they need to unload. This role is the most similar to that of a therapist. Money is a vital topic, second only in importance to health. But our brains are not wired to watch the value of a portfolio change wildly with market movements. Add in the 24-hour doom news cycle, and it's easy to accumulate a ton of mind garbage that needs unloading.

Emotions are inextricably linked to money and investing. But making investment decisions based on emotions is almost always a mistake. Being a sponge to help release those emotions is a key role of a financial advisor.

The Intellectual Sparing Partner

Investing is a heady endeavor. It requires learning a mix of economic and statistical model, academic theorems, and equations. All of this math is mixed with a relentless attempt to predict an uncertain future. News stories and headlines provide a constant drum of ‘evidence’ either supporting or negating one’s predictions.

Clients often need someone to debate the pros and cons and to provide a framework for making decisions. I am a fan of using the worst-case scenario possibility and working backward from it. It is so easy to get lost in the potential upsides that we develop blind spots to risk. Acting as a neutral, intellectual sparing partner is a fun and stimulating role to play.

The Punching Bag

One of the top reasons to hire a financial advisor is to take the pressure off of making investment decisions. The advisor becomes the person to blame when markets take their next, inevitable downturn. This is when I assume the role of a punching bag to absorb a few blows. Similar to the sponge, this role allows a client to offload emotions stemming from fear. And nothing is more important than removing emotions from the investment decision-making process.

The punching bag is the least enjoyable of roles, but a necessary one at times. Even when markets are soaring, mistakes can still occur. A deadline is missed, paperwork contains errors, and money transfers are delayed. These operational headaches, although rare, are unavoidable for high-volume advice givers. My best advice to young financial advisors is to get accustomed to owning up to your mistakes and apologizing. Just make sure you learn from each one. My past mistakes have helped me avoid countless slip-ups over the years.

The Confidant

People tell their financial advisors things they wouldn’t even say to their friends or family members. I’m always honored when a client shares pregnancy news with me before they’ve even told the future grandparents. Being the “first to know” big and important news in a client’s life is an honor. Quitting a job, selling the company, starting a new company, proposing marriage, and preparing for divorce. These are all conversations I’ve had over the years with clients mulling over some of life’s most important decisions.

It goes without saying that discretion is a key skill required of a financial advisor. To become a confidant, you must build a relationship founded on strong and mutual trust.

The Cheerleader

Nothing is more exciting in this role than watching clients bring their financial plans to life. From toasting retirements to oggling photos of grandchildren, being a client’s cheerleader has been one of the best memories of my career. I adore receiving updates on bucket list vacations, gorgeous home renovations, and personal achievements. It’s hilarious that I had zero interest in being an actual cheerleader in high school.

Cheering on clients who achieve their goals is pure joy. It’s often a culmination of years of hard work and planning. Although I play a role as the advisor, it’s really the clients who deserve the credit for their accomplishments.

These are a few of the many hats I wear as a financial advisor. What have I missed? Are there other roles your advisor plays in your life? I’d love to hear about them.

I have characterized the post-GFC US stock market as the easiest DIY market of all time. This summer, as a client walked me through positions in a self-directed trading account, I commented, “Yes, there is no denying that the stocks you hear about on financial television are the ones that have beaten the market in recent years.” This has been an era in which amateurs have been able to beat professionals. Perhaps the ubiquitousness of information and data has forever changed the dynamics of investing.

Which brings me to the question in the title of this post. How does one sell an astronomical winner? Rather than providing a black-and-white answer, I have developed a framework, albeit an imperfect one, for approaching this decision. With the 20/20 benefit of hindsight, we can always lament what ‘could have been’ had we YOLO’d our winners into the stratosphere. Selling winners relies more on emotion than on data and analysis.

There are three paths forward.

Never Sell - YOLO

If I had bought $10,000 of Apple Inc. stock in 2003, when I graduated from college and never sold a single share, that investment would be worth $5.6 million today. Gulp! (I actually had $15,000 left in my college savings account at the time. Too bad I spent it on a move to New York City.) But many investors have held onto Apple stock during this time period.

In most of these real-life cases, Apple makes up a large percentage of the investor’s portfolio. Never selling has been a winning strategy so far. One option, therefore, is never to sell. Avoiding the decision completely ensures two things:

1. The investor will not miss a cent of potential future returns from Apple, and

2. The performance of a single stock will forever dominate the portfolio.

I am personally uncomfortable with betting my financial future on one company, even a great one like Apple. But for some, the mental fortitude of jumping off the winning ride is too great. To them I ask, then what are these life-changing investment returns for? Is it all just a game, a thrill-seeking ride to watch numbers go up on a screen? If that is the goal, by all means, keep playing. But don’t be surprised when the future doesn’t perfectly match the past.

Rip the Band-Aid

A second extreme option is to rip off the proverbial band-aid and sell every share at once. You remember the anxiety-inducing exercise of removing sticky band-aids from your scabs as a child. Removing them slowly is both mentally and physically too painful. Best to get it over with and rip it off. After the scream, you breathe a sigh of relief. It wasn’t so bad after all.

Ripping the band-aid is a strategy that makes more sense for short-term extreme winners. Consider the $100,000 investment made in shares of NVIDIA Corp that is suddenly worth over $1.5 million. This, too, is a common spot for many investors.

NVIDIA's stock has declined by more than 50% on two occasions over the past decade. Do you have the stomach to watch $100,000 become $1.5 million and then drop to $750,000? Or are you someone who would rather enjoy the things your newfound gains can buy for you? The first rule of selling a winner is, “Know Thyself”.

The surest way to lock in a gain is to sell it all. But on this path, you must also agree to never look back at what could have been if NVDA stock triples again over the next 5 years.

The Middle Path - A Planned Exit

To most investors, the first two options are both insufferable. We have decent calculators inside our monkey brains, and we like to keep score. We know that the future path of the stock is likely neither straight up nor straight down. In many cases, taxes also need to be taken into account. However, the murky middle option contradicts our desire for clarity and a known outcome. This is where investors often get stuck. How do I sell a small portion of my winner, gradually, over time? Our minds can imagine so many possible scenarios that we freeze, like deer in headlights.

To those stuck in the middle, I offer an imperfect framework for selling winners methodically over time.

Calendar-based percentages.

Pick a percentage of the total position you want to sell and decide on what cadence to sell shares. For example, you could sell 25% every 3 months and completely exit the position within a year. If you want to split the tax bill on the gain over multiple years, be sure to straddle some of your trades across the turn of the calendar year. This time of year is perfect for embarking on a tax-straddling plan. You can sell shares in October and again in January, less than three months from now, and the taxes are due in April 2026 and April 2027. (This is not tax advice. You should consult your CPA.)

Want to take it slow? No problem. Sell 10% of your position every January or 5% on the 1st of each month for the next two years. The possibilities are endless.

The key to success with this strategy is to determine a suitable cadence and commit to the timeline. You cannot let the stock price sway your commitment to the plan, no matter whether it goes up or down. One factor is always unknown: the price of the stock tomorrow, next month, or next year. If sticking to the plan is difficult for you, consider Option 1 or Option 2 discussed earlier.

If you’ve read this far, you likely have a winner in your portfolio, a stock that has appreciated beyond your wildest dreams. You have already won. Congratulations! The key to determining your exit strategy is straightforward.

Ask yourself: What would I regret the most? Losing my gains by holding on too long or missing out on more gains by selling too early. If you react strongly to either question, you should consider options 2 or 1: Ripping the Band-Aid or Never Sell. But if you feel a mix of emotions, you may find yourself Stuck in the Middle. The best thing you can do is to develop a plan to sell over time and to commit wholeheartedly to executing it. Your success is not predicated on selling the stock at the absolute top. That’s practically impossible. All you need to do is decide when and how to get off the train.

I took the side of the status quo, shareholder-centric capitalism, and why a FIAT standard could disrupt the greatest economic engine of all time. George explained the negative externalities of rampant, cutthroat capitalism, particularly the consequences of enormous wealth and income disparities worldwide.

Do hierarchical systems serve the whole? How can we adapt to ensure our economic system thrives for generations to come? More importantly, which side won?

You’ll have to watch to find out. I’d love to hear from you. What are your thoughts on the current trajectory of shareholder capitalism? Will is serve us well for the next 150 years, or should we look for ways to adapt?

George and I plan to continue these discussions with a future FIAT versus Capitalism debate on the Truth. Stay tuned ….

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As I sit in my office in New Orleans on the eve of Hurricane Katrina's 20th anniversary, I marvel at the reform work undertaken by the city’s residents in the aftermath of the storm. They were determined not only to rebuild but to build something better. That initial post-storm enthusiasm gave way to apathy and a distaste for the truth-guzzling system of politics. New Orleans is in danger of sliding back into the comfort of the old systems of corruption, negligence, and nepotism.

My interest in those reforms led me to join a volunteer advocacy group, Citizens for 1 Greater New Orleans, shortly after moving here 14 years ago. After Katrina, this group of women successfully passed legislation to reform the governance of New Orleans’ levee boards. This was a massive feat given the deal-making tit-for-tat that has dominated state politics since Huey P. Long. Armed with only the truth and the will of citizens demanding change, they lobbied state lawmakers to pass reforms, taking the levee board king-making power away from the Governor.

Three separate Governors followed those reforms until the current one. Now, as Chair of Citizens for 1, we advocate to hold the line on those reforms to ensure we do not divert our focus from the city’s defense against another catastrophic flood. You can read more in an op-ed I wrote for the local paper, the Times-Picayune, here.

Frazer Rice invited me on his podcast, Wealth Actually, to discuss my advocacy work with Citizens for 1 Greater New Orleans.

I am also vice chair for a youth workforce training program, Cafe Reconcile. We help young people prepare to enter the workforce via a real cafe serving lunch on weekdays. Cafe Reconcile has an incredible management team, so board service is limited to oversight and advice. I serve on the Finance committee (as past-Treasurer) and the Executive committee and attend various events throughout the year, including our upcoming 25th anniversary celebration. Last year, I wrote about the transformative gift Reconcile received from philanthropist MacKenzie Scott. I will assume the Chair position (2-year term) next summer. Reconcile is the most rewarding nonprofit volunteer work I have ever done.

New Orleans has a mayoral election this fall. Through my work with Citizens for 1 Greater New Orleans, I am on a committee to host a mayoral forum on water and coastal issues. My role on the committee is candidate outreach and communication. Having this one-on-one communication with the candidates and their teams has been interesting. Given the opportunity to know each candidate on a first-name basis, this could be the most informed vote I’ve ever made.

How does this extra work enhance my work as a financial advisor?

As my clients' average net worth has increased, I tend to work with individuals involved in civic work. As measured by charitable giving, America is one of the most generous countries on Earth. Most wealthy Americans feel grateful to their communities and wish to contribute to their future success by donating their time and resources. I can connect with and relate to them through similar lived experiences.

Civic involvement gives me energy. When my emotional/intellectual/spiritual cups are full, I can be more present as an advisor. I’ve written before about the psychological experience of the financial advisor role. Forming trust-based relationships with people about something as precious as their money requires a lot of empathy and listening. Absorbing clients' hopes, fears, anxieties, and concerns is — A LOT. I struggle to put it into words.

Over the years, I have learned the regimen required to stay ‘fit’ as an advisor. Two critical pieces are getting at least 8 hours of sleep and a regular morning ashtanga yoga practice. But not until recently did I realize that civic engagement also plays a role. As an introvert who lives with the thoughts inside my head, I am healthier when I have something helpful to think about. That is likely why reading is one of my favorite hobbies. Working on these outside projects gives my mind something different to chew on, clearing it up to be focused when I perform my professional work.

Many people outside of New Orleans are watching various documentaries and stories about Hurricane Katrina this week. As someone who adopted New Orleans as a hometown, I have come to appreciate its strange allure. As former journalist Chris Rose wrote, “The longer you live in New Orleans, the more unfit you become to live anywhere else.” That may be true.

As you remember the devastation and destruction that occurred when the levees broke, know that there are many good people who work every day to make sure that never happens again. There’s beauty here, amongst the crime, the heat, and the chaos. You should visit and taste it for yourself - but only between late October and early May.

We covered shareholder sanctity, the profit motive, negative (and positive) externalities to scale, wealth inequality, and the importance of truth, which could be an entire topic for a future LIVE on its own.

At one point, my phone went rogue and shut down, but George handled it beautifully until I was able to reconnect. Despite that technical snafu, I am in awe that we can broadcast live to an audience on opposite sides of the globe. George is currently in London, and I am in the mountains of western North Carolina.

A very engaged audience submitted wonderful thoughts and questions. You can watch the replay in its 36 minute entirety below. George and I want to continue these debates in a series on FIAT. Perhaps I can brush up on my proper debating skills. As I mentioned in the video, I never joined the debate team in high school, so this was a first for me.

I am excited to announce that George will speak at Future Proof Festival next month in Huntington Beach. If you are a financial advisor or member of the wealth management ecosystem, it is not too late to register. I hope to see you there - September 7 -10, 2025. If you need some help with the cost, here’s a discounted ticket link courtesy of The Compound.

Register for Future Proof

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Not a single seat in the Metropolitan Opera House was empty. The audience gasped and cheered each time she appeared on the stage. Her presence and artistry were captivating. Her technique was still flawless and gave no glimpse of her age.

The lead ballerina in Swan Lake must dance two roles in a four-act ballet. Odette, the white swan, requires a delicate, feathery beauty that hides any trace of the difficulty behind the steps. Odile, the black swan, demands a bewitching power, stamina, and strength. The infamous, black swan, 32 fouette turns are a rite of passage for all great ballerinas. Gillian threw in her signature double turns and finished the series spinning faster than a toy top. She finished the black swan pas de deux with an ecstatic and deep one-armed backend, one of a few signs she gave the audience that she was relishing her last moments on the stage.

In plain English, she nailed it. She danced the most challenging role in all of classical ballet, and she slayed.

It was a one-in-a-lifetime experience. I am grateful to my dear friend, college roommate, and fellow dancer, Olivia, for making the trip with me.

Before the curtain rose, a large screen descended from the top of the stage. A short video montage played interviews of Gillian’s dancer colleagues, directors, and teachers. One theme rang throughout their words: Gillian was as equally kind and generous as she was talented. She had every right to act like a diva. Instead, she was constantly checking on her supporting cast members, the stage hand crew, the wardrobe mistresses, and the musicians. She understood the teamwork required to pull off a classical ballet performance.

Gillian’s strong finish, with wholehearted accolades from the global ballet community, was inspirational.

Gillian has given me a new goal as I approach the second half of my career: to go out in top form and to pull others up and along beside me. I’ve seen too many financial advisors coast in their final years while relying on junior staff to shoulder the load. There are no physical demands to force retirement, so many advisors carry on long past their expiration date.

I do not begrudge those who find purpose and meaning by working into their later years. If I am so lucky, I am committed to staying on top of my game and being all in to support my team. This requires a dedication to lifetime learning and the willingness to change and adapt. We are at the advent of AI changing our roles and responsibilities as advisors in unimaginable ways. I hope that I will also have the wisdom to know when to take my final bow.

As I write this on a Tuesday afternoon, I’ve had two conversations this week with people interested in working at my firm, Ritholtz Wealth Management. I received a lovely request from one of my favorite nonprofits, Rock the Street, Wall Street, to speak with a young woman in college who is considering a career in wealth management. I said yes.

Earlier this summer, I had coffee with RTSWS alum and my former intern, who is charging forward in her early career years. She said something that took my breathe away - “I remember the advice you gave me years ago, and now that I’m out in the real world, it is starting to click”. - to paraphrase.

I can only hope that people will remember me in some tiny way similar to how the dance world remembers Gillian, as someone who appreciated teamwork and pulled people forward with her guidance and influence.

I remember the first time I saw Gillian Murphy. I was a young ballet student in the summer program at the North Carolina School for the Arts. Gillian had just graduated from their high school and was about to join American Ballet Theater. She was practicing a solo variation with her mentor and teacher, Melissa Hayden. I peered in through the open studio door to watch a tall, dynamic dancer with flaming red hair perform the most amazing turns I’d ever seen. She was mesmerizing, unforgettable. I wanted to emulate her, even though I knew I could never reach her level of greatness.

I many ways, I am still that little girl peeking in the studio to watch Gillian rehearse. Looking up to her example as a dancer and drawing parallels to my own career goals. Bravo beautiful Gillian! It was honor to witness your swan song and final bow. I am forever grateful to have watched you from the sidelines all along the way.

The term " fiduciary" is not well-known in the general population, but independent financial advisers have tried (unsuccessfully IMO) to explain it to investors. Here is the definition per Merriam-Webster:

Confidence and trust are powerful words. What would it be like if we could have trust and confidence in all of the dealings of day-to-day life? What if we held our institutions - companies, governments, and nonprofits - to this standard?

It may sound very pie in the sky or unrealistic, but Kinder suggests it might be easy. All we have to do is adopt a one-sentence legislative proposal.

You may be thinking this all sounds very pie-in-the-sky or kumbaya. But let’s talk about what this standard would mean and, more importantly, how it differs from how the world operates today, at least in developed, democratic economies.

Corporations are legal entities established and authorized by the state to conduct commerce. Their owners are shareholders entitled to share in the entity's profits. In the United States and most developed economies, corporations have a duty solely to maximize profits for their shareholders. And boy, have they done a great job maximizing those profits, especially in the US.

This shareholder-centric system ensures that companies produce the products and services most desired by customers. Look around you and see some of modern capitalism’s greatest accomplishments. You’re likely using one of them to read this blog post. Humans are healthier, more prosperous, free, and comfortable than at any other time in history.

But arguably, something is missing: a broader viewpoint of the corporation’s impact outside of its narrow focus. Specialization has led to our greatest discoveries, but the current economic model lacks an overarching theme to protect and strengthen the whole.

Cigarette companies are the perfect example. They produce a simple product highly desired by their customers, made from the easy-to-grow tobacco plant. The profit margins are high, and customers are continuous and loyal. What, then, were tobacco corporations to do in the face of mounting scientific evidence that their products increase the risk of cancer and early morbidity? Let’s review the shareholder model.

If the duty is solely to shareholders, tobacco companies should ignore the scientific evidence and continue to sell as many cigarettes to as many customers as possible. This is precisely what tobacco companies did for decades, even willfully misleading their customers that smoking was not harmful, until the Master Settlement Agreement between 45 tobacco companies and 52 US states and territories was reached in 1998.

How would this be different under a Fiduciary Model? Tobacco companies would owe a duty to customers, employees, the public, and shareholders. They are more likely to be honest about the risks of using their products. They are less likely to try to advertise to children not mature enough to understand the risks. This sacrifice of a portion of profits in the short run builds trust that can lead to more informed and loyal customers in the long-run. The Fiduciary Model works as a natural suppressant to the extremes of capitalism.

Cigarettes are easy to pick on because the health risks are now accepted universally. Imagine if we could trust the information we receive from corporations? Now, apply this mental exercise to governmental institutions, non-profits, and the media.*

Imagine a fiduciary standard for elected officials, rather than the current system (in the US, at least) of allegiance to the largest donors or political party affiliation. The first order of business would be to restrict members of Congress from trading individual stocks when they clearly have inside information.

I’ve barely scratched the surface of this argument, but I hope your creative juices are flowing. We CAN improve our current systems and structures because we are in charge. All it takes is the collective will and desire to do so.

I choose to work under a fiduciary standard model because trust and confidence are necessary to assist people with their most important financial decisions. How could I be effective without it? This is how I know that applying a fiduciary standard more broadly will be a major, positive step forward for the world.

*The US had a robust system of journalistic integrity for many decades, before the rise of 24/7 cable entertainment ‘news’, social media, bloggers (guilty as charged), and modern-day influencers.

But I shouldn’t be shocked.

Investors are conditioned to “Buy the Dip” because it’s been working for a very long time. More specifically, buy huge, mega-cap tech companies that have dominated the market since the end of the financial crisis 16 years ago.

The Magnificent 7 - Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, Google, Nvidia, and Tesla - now comprise 30% of the S&P 500 and 41% of the Nasdaq 100. They used to be called the FANGs, FAANGs, FANMAGs, and now the Mag 7. Wall Street loves an acronym. These seven companies have a combined market cap of $16.8 trillion. This is roughly equal to the entire market cap of Europe and the United Kingdom and larger than that of China, the world’s second-largest economy.

Many (including me!) have predicted the end of the Magnificent 7’s dominance, and they have been wrong. I’m not here to do that today, but to observe that a trend this long in the tooth will likely end badly.

This thought occurred to me as I attended a brain trust session hosted by my friend JC Parets of All Star Charts in New Orleans last week. In a room full of serious traders, squished between presentations on crypto and gold, a fellow wealth advisor, Stephen Weitzel, presented his whitepaper titled, Pavlov’s New Dog. He made the case that investors, like the dogs in Pavlov’s experiments, have been conditioned to overweight US stocks. He asked, “What will it take to break this conditioning?” How many times will Pavlov have to ring the bell and not provide food for the dogs to stop salivating at the sound?

Investors have been rewarded immensely for buying the dips, overweighting US stocks, and concentrating their portfolios in a handful of gigantic tech stocks. I have seen it first-hand. The 2,000% gain in Apple that allowed a client to retire earlier and spend more than she ever expected. The $500,000 dollar investment in Nvidia that turned into $4 million. Statements showing enormous unrealized gains and heavy concentration in these beloved names.

The average annual return for the S&P 500 from 2010 to 2024 was almost 13%—18 % for the NASDAQ 100. These have been glorious years to invest in large-cap US growth stocks. Given the long-term average for stock market returns (8-10% per year), these returns were more than our wildest dreams. Yay!

A force similar to gravity exists in financial markets. Some use the popular analogy — Stock markets take the stairs up and the elevator down. Similarly, trends have a tendency to revert to the mean. The US stock market has outperformed stocks in developed countries around the world by to the tune of 4x since the Great Financial Crisis. International stocks were the most hated asset class by the end of last year.

Take a look at the performance of these markets so far in 2025. International stocks are crushing US stocks, and it’s not even close.

This is a stunning performance differential —almost 1500 basis points, and I doubt most people have even noticed. Is this the beginning of a trend reversal? I don’t know. But it proves that we should always expect the unexpected.

What will it take to change the knee-jerk reaction of investors to keep buying the dips in these megacap companies? How many times will Pavlov have to ring the bell? It’s an interesting question that gives me the chills. My gut reaction is that it will take A LOT of pain to break this habit.

In 2022, many Magnificent 7 stocks were cut in half or worse. And yet, investors were rewarded almost immediately for buying these declines or riding them out. Based on this evidence alone, we know the pain will have to be more severe or last longer to shake this trend.

I take no pleasure in pointing this out, and I have no predictions for how or when this trend will end. But all things do come to an end.

It doesn’t have to be a big, dramatic crash. Perhaps these giants will grow more slowly, and other stocks will catch up and surpass them. Like the tortoise and the hare, investors probably won’t notice until it’s too late.

The challenge with investing trends is that they can last longer than anyone expects. But if you have been blessed with some of these outsized gains, be sure to make an offering to the stock market gods. Then take some money off the table, diversify, and live to see the following change in trend. I don’t know if this is the 7th inning or the bottom of the 9th. It feels like a marathon extra-inning game to me.

Charles Ellis wrote a book that changed my entire philosophy on investing called Winning the Loser’s Game. The key to long-term success in investing is to reduce unnecessary mistakes. Doubling down forever on US large cap stocks is an unforced error waiting to happen. My guess is that this will probably end badly.

The markets spoke to this shock. US stocks were in free fall on both Thursday and Friday. The S&P 500 Index lost 10.5% over two days. The Nasdaq 100 lost over 11%. It was the fourth worst two-day stretch for US stock markets since 1950. I won’t sugarcoat it. This is bad.

What is a long-term investor to do?

Refrain from decisions made based on emotions. No good investment or trading decision ever comes under heated emotions. In times of fear, your brain latches on to negative information. It is easy to rationalize that things will get much worse for markets before they improve. They likely will, but here’s the thing ….

There are no magical strategies to avoid the pain. I wish I could tell you there’s a way to prevent the pain while still earning market returns. It is the most natural reaction in the world to want to do this. We know things are bad now, so why not sell out and wait for the smoke to clear? Because you have two chances of being wrong - when to sell and when to buy back in. It’s buying back in, which is harder. The market doesn’t wait for the news to get better. When the news improves, it’s too late. COVID is the perfect example. The stock market rally began in April 2020, long before the COVID death rate peaked and years before life returned to normal.

But this one is different. Every market sell-off is different. This isn’t my first rodeo, but it is the first self-inflicted and completely avoidable one. That is hard to reconcile. But so was the global pandemic that shut down the economy and the financial crisis that left the entire global banking system bankrupt on paper. The difference is that we know how past crises ended. We see they were amazing buying opportunities. It absolutely did not feel that way at the time. This crisis will also end.

Give yourself a pressure release valve. Everyone learns their true risk tolerance in a crisis. If you need to do something to release the pressure or sleep at night, consider more minor changes. Perhaps you can raise enough cash to cover a year of expenses and put it in a high-yield savings account. Or you can reduce your stock exposure from 80% to 60%. By all means, do something at the margins, but don’t sell out.

Invest Cash on the Sidelines. No one knows how long this will last or how deep it will be. But the best time to buy stocks is when they scare you the most. The data supports this. Potential returns in the next 1, 3, and 5 years increase as the selloff grows. If you have cash intended for long-term investment, now is the time to start putting it to work. You do not need to go all at once. Divide it into 1/3rds or 1/4ths and devise a plan to invest it over time or at key market levels.

Make a plan to rebalance. If you don’t have cash on the sidelines, there is still a way to take advantage of lower prices. Hopefully, you have some bonds in your portfolio. Calculate how far your allocation has moved from its target. Define a level at which you will sell bonds to buy more stocks. Will it be when your portfolio is 5, 10, or 20% off balance? The best time to plan is in advance. Then, stick to your plan no matter what. Discipline is probably the most important skill for the long-term investor.

No one knows the future. Not even the smartest pundits on TV. This crisis could end on Monday or stretch for years as an escalating trade war and global recession. Long-term investing requires optimism about the future. Companies will find a way to produce the goods and services we want and need and sell them at a profit - no matter how the new rules shake out. Your success never required knowing the future - only your fortitude to stick to your plan. Dorothy didn’t need the Wizard of Oz to take her home to Kansas. All she had to do was click her heels.

Take a deep breath. This could go on for a while. Settle in. Find whatever coping mechanisms work for you. I recommend turning off the TV and reducing your overall news consumption. I heard FoxNews took the market ticker off their screens mid-day on Thursday. Investment returns are earned, not given. I am reminded of one of my all-time favorite investing quotes:

In bear markets, stocks return to their rightful owners. - J.P. Morgan

I have now completed those goals in that order. This feels like a monumental accomplishment, representing more than a decade of hard work and determination.

We flew to Park City, Utah, for a week earlier this month. New Orleans schools are closed for Mardi Gras week, providing an opportune time to hit the slopes when the crowds are thin. With two kids (ages 8 and 5) skiing for the first time, I knew there was a chance that one or both of them would hate it. There’s a ton of clothing and equipment involved. Walking in ski boots is hard. Falling, getting skis twisted, or feeling out of control and afraid are all real possibilities. I’ve seen one too many temper tantrums on the mountain in my day to know these risks.

Ensuring everyone in my family had all the appropriate clothing was a chore. Many thanks to my parents for gifting bibs, jackets, goggles, and gloves to the kids for Christmas and birthdays. Then there were lessons to book. I am grateful to my friend Katherine, who suggested sharing private lessons with our kids on three mornings. It was worth the additional cost. My younger one would not have allowed me to drop her off in a group lesson with strangers.

They both enjoyed it! By the end of the first day, they were both taking the ski lift. I put my daughter between my legs and skied down with her. I heard her shouting, “Wheeeeee!” as we picked up a little speed. My son was an absolute natural. He was skating uphill and almost making parallel turns on the first day. I could not be more thrilled with the trip's outcome.

By the last day, my son was skiing all over the mountain with me and making it down some steep blue runs. I was in total shock but thrilled to have a new ski buddy. Kudos to my husband, who is learning to ski as an adult, which is not an easy feat. He looked really good for his second time on skis.

Now that I’ve completed these long-term financial goals, I feel the need to set new ones. I climbed a mountain to get here - building a family, buying a family home, and taking the first ski trip. But what to strive for next? I wouldn’t be a proper financial advisor if I didn’t practice what I preach.

Luckily, a viewer from Ask the Compound gave me an idea. I joined Ben Carlson on this week’s episode to discuss whether buying a boat is irresponsible. Of course, it’s not always irresponsible to buy a boat, although, as I point out, it’s always better to have a friend with a boat than to own one. Boats are finicky, require lots of maintenance, and generally incur many costs in addition to the purchase price.

I grew up around boats, understand what it takes to own one, and know how to operate and maintain them properly. For years, I’ve been yearning for a decent ski boat. There’s nothing better than skiing behind a boat with a proper wake. I’m adding a ski boat to my new list of financial goals.

Goals help us focus on the future we want to build. Without goals, a financial plan is impossible. And no, the goal cannot be to have more money. Money is a tool, meant to be used. I often find myself asking investors, “What is this money for?”. Answering this question is vital to creating a successful financial plan.

When was the last time you revisited your financial goals? Are they general or specific? The more specific the goal, the easier it is to accomplish it. Don’t forget to pick your head up from the rat race every now and then to check in on your “Why.”

If you’ve been following along for a while, you will remember that two years ago, in January 2023, we bought a proper family home and moved out of our adorable starter home. At the time, I couldn’t imagine trying to fix up and sell a house while two little kids were living in it. So, I took a HELOC and a 401k loan and bought the new house with every intention of selling the old house post haste.

I caught some flack for sharing my use of a 401k loan, which is apparently the third rail of financial planning ‘No No’s. I still have no regrets.

I never imagined selling the old house would take two years! A perfect storm of challenges occurred when we finally listed it for sale in the summer of ‘23. Mortgage rates spiked from historic lows < 3% to 7% for 30-year fixed loans. Rates still have not come down. The homeowner’s insurance market went through a period of reinsurance stress and repricing of climate risks, causing our policy price to double. We couldn’t see house prices moving in a market with low volume and few comparisons. Buyers in this price range use financing and don’t have unlimited income to absorb these cost increases. The market basically froze.

After rejecting several lowball offers, we took the house off the market to make some updates. Our mistake was trying to do these ourselves, embarking on a never-ending home renovation project. Then, one day in late October, I took a few days off to help my husband complete some work. In the driveway, I waved to our old neighbor, who chatted me up.

I commented that we were trying to finish our projects so that we could relist the house soon, probably at a lower price than the previous year. He mentioned that his mother plans to sell her house in Texas and move to New Orleans. She might be interested in buying it. “Perfect!” I said. Let’s chat.” We agreed on a price and signed a contract a few weeks later.

We closed on the property last week. It feels great, but I won’t know how it really feels until March 1, when I don’t have two mortgages and a HELOC payment to make. Or in a few more weeks when we receive the balance of our Escrow account and a refund from the homeowner’s insurance policy. Hey! At least I know exactly how much of a second home I can afford if I want to buy one….. I don’t.

While I have zero regrets about buying my dream home, I have a few tidbits of advice for anyone looking to upgrade to a larger, more expensive home.

1. Expect the Unexpected - Don’t assume the housing market will always be a seller’s market or that prices will never come down. You never know what your house is worth until you try to sell it. Listing prices of homes around you may be very different than the eventual sales price. Other shenanigans can hide the actual sale prices - such as seller concessions.

2. Skip the Starter Home - If you can, wait until you can afford the home you want in the long run. While the idea of a starter home is enticing, you might be better off renting and saving for a few more years. Our earnings didn’t align with this plan. I’m a bit salty that my timing did not align with historically low mortgage rates. C’est la vie.

3. Leave a Huge Margin for Error - When we decided to buy the new house without selling the old house first, I assumed the worst-case scenario would be that the sale would take a full year. It took two years. The plan was to use the remaining HELOC balance if cash ran short. Luckily, the business grew, and so did my income. Things could quickly have gone the other way. I took a risk and bet on the potential of my career, and it paid off. I am fully aware that luck was a contributing factor in this case.

4. Budget for Maintenance / Repairs - A bigger house requires a bigger maintenance budget. The first year in a new house can be financially tight. Leave room in your budget for all the little things that can go wrong and must be fixed. We asked the seller of our new home to purchase a home warranty on the appliances for the first year. We replaced a refrigerator and had several repairs on the warranty. We chose to defer several other maintenance projects while we waited for the other house to sell.

5. Give Yourself a Break: The mental stress of the two-house conundrum was honestly worse than the financial stress. It reminded me of the times I carried credit card debt in my early twenties. I found myself thinking about all the dollars going towards the other house that could have been saved or spent on other things. I had to remind myself that life is not an optimized spreadsheet. Life is messy, organic, and human. That’s what makes it so sweet.

In the end, we accomplished our long-term objective. We own a home where we can comfortably raise our family. It is a fabulous space to host and entertain. We hosted 12+ people for Thanksgiving and again for Christmas Eve. We have big plans to improve the space over time. Perhaps a pool is in our future. I’ll be back with lessons learned about installing a swimming pool, if and when that happens.

Online life has also changed a lot. When I first started writing The Belle Curve, I enjoyed immediate dialogue with readers by sharing posts on the social media site formerly known as Twitter. As my Twitter community became less engaging, I tried my hand at other forms of social media. Instagram is not my medium. I’m a terrible photographer and an even worse video editor. TikTok was, therefore, a nonstarter. I must say that LinkedIn has made massive improvements, but I don’t want to wait two weeks to find out how a post is received.

I began to notice some of my favorite writers migrating to Substack. First, I subscribed to Sam Ro’s TKer newsletter. Then Doug and Heather Boneparth started The Joint Account. I discovered a fantastic new podcast from Money with Katie’s host, Katie Gatti Tassin, called Diabolical Lies, which is hosted here. The reader experience has been a good one for me. A trend was emerging.

In late January, I attended a retreat with three amazing women who are peers in the personal finance world. We gathered in the desert for a few days to compare notes, share challenges, form friendships, and help hold each other accountable for our goals. AJ Ayers of Money Changes Everything asked if I had ever considered moving to Substack. A few weeks later, I remembered her question and explored making the move. Many thanks to RWM’s COO, Nick Maggiulli, for the technical assistance.

And so a new chapter begins for The Belle Curve. I look forward to picking up where I left off - sharing my thoughts about money, markets, personal finance, and investing from the perspective of women. Lord knows we need more of that these days!

Yours Humbly,

Blair

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It wasn’t until my drive home that I felt my earlobe. Had I forgotten to put on my earrings this morning? No, wait! I was missing an earring! One of the beautiful antique diamond earrings my husband gave me for my 40th birthday—the ones I’ve worn every single day since. I felt a panic in my throat, and I tried to remain calm. I decided to turn the car around to at least go back and look.

Could it have possibly fallen in my purse? No. First, I checked the cart I had left in the return section of the parking lot. No luck. I reentered the store and paced to the main aisle, which I thought was where I had lost it. I got down on the floor and looked under the racks. I only found dust and discarded merchandise. Out of diligence, I left my name and number with the customer service manager. But I knew it was gone. It will probably be thrown out in a dustbin.

A sadness came over me, but there was no one to blame. The earring was simply lost. No one is at fault. As I took off my shoes that evening, I gave them one more hopeful shake, just in case the earring fell in my shoe. My mind wandered to the yoga class I took online Saturday morning and the talk given afterward. It was then that I realized that this was a test of my ability to practice one of the first limbs of Ashtanga yoga – the yamas. The specific yama, in this case, is aparigraha, or non-attachment.

In a season overrun by attachment to things, I was fighting a personal battle with the love of a beautiful piece of jewelry that has brought me great joy. I must learn to let it go. It appears to have been written into my karma. The earring was to be lost. That was destiny. What could I learn from the experience?

In my work as a financial advisor, I see many examples of attachment. Most people are attached to the high water mark of their portfolio values. The good habits that allow wealth accumulation – savings and investing – often work against investors in retirement. Decumulation is scary and does not come naturally. Humans have a hoarding instinct to save up for the coming winter. We do not easily flip off our hoarding switch to enjoy spending in retirement. Attached to the apex of our financial wealth, we risk missing out on the joy of spending it. As I have reminded several investors over the years, we are not pharaohs. We cannot take our wealth with us to the tomb.

I recently listened to a podcast interview with Bill Perkins, the author of the bestseller Die with Zero. His message resonated with me deeply. He spoke about the importance of prioritizing experiences for the opportune time in life. He gave a wonderful example of how backpacking in Europe and staying in hostels is only enjoyed by young adults. Later in life, such a trip, in that way, would not be as rich. I was reminded of my own goal to teach my children to ski. To give them a life skill that is easier for them to learn while they are young. It’s one I have been putting off due to the cost and logistics of getting my family of four to the mountains. It’s one I am determined to tackle this winter. Please hold me to this pledge.

Another place I see attachment is with individual stocks. And who could blame investors for falling in love with stocks that have produced returns like Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft, Tesla, and others during this glorious bull market for US mega-cap tech companies? I’ve written about how Apple has transformed the financial lives of many investors, allowing them to retire earlier or spend more. But I am equally impressed with investors who can practice a little aparigraha with their winners, taking chips off the table. I hope the day never comes when today’s winners become losers. But I do know that what the market gives, the market has the power to take away. We can all practice a bit of non-attachment discipline from time to time.

I’m old enough to remember the bankruptcies of Enron and Worldcom. I still have battle scars from Lehman, AIG, Bear Stearns, and other casualties of the Great Financial Crisis. Now, I have lived through a period where HODLing stock market winners have produced life-changing results. But headlines about a new administration rolling back financial regulations and abolishing the FDIC give me pause. It was benign deregulation from the Clinton era that created the environment for the GFC.

Aparigraha means practicing non-attachment in the face of evidence to the contrary. There’s an element of fear in letting go. And isn’t that the mark of a successful investor, to face one’s fears?

There will be more earrings in my future. I’m certain of that. But today, I close a beautiful chapter by letting go of my lost earring. I wonder what items (or investments) you are holding onto that are yearning to move on? Perhaps the year’s end will provide time for self-reflection. A new year presents a fresh start, a chance to begin again. I’m taking this lesson of non-attachment with me into the next quarter century. Will you come with me?

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Much has been written about the cognitive dissonance about the state of the US economy. Corporate earnings are at record highs. GDP growth is steadily higher than at any time post-GFC. The US stock market has made almost 50 all-time highs this year. Unemployment ticked up a bit but remains at decades-long lows.  Real wages for the bottom 25% of earners actually made up for some of their 40-year losses. But have you seen the price of eggs? Obviously, the economy is falling apart!

Housing is expensive. I’ll give them that.

If you remove our presidential candidates’ names, characters, and political affiliations, you can see objectively that the party in power had a disadvantage. There was nothing they could do or say. Throw in the toxic state of politics and the death spiral silos of biased news consumption, and the outcome is clear. Pay no attention to the populist strong man making fascist innuendos behind the curtain (out in the open).

To those who worry.

I believe financial markets are our strongest check and balance. Markets can be a swift self-correcting mechanism. Markets do not lie. Markets anticipate. They do not wait for the outcome. Do you think the biggest ego in the world won’t be paying attention?

I have two examples to back up this theory.

In late September 2008, at the depths of the financial crisis, Congress rejected the first attempt to pass the $700 billion financial bailout plan called the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). The stock market reacted violently, losing nearly 7% on the day. Banks were failing left and right, and the global financial system was quite literally collapsing. The rejection vote was on a Monday. By Friday, the House voted to approve the bailout bill, and the President signed it the same day. The markets spoke, and legislators listened.

In the summer of 2011, Republicans in Congress fought the Obama administration over the routine process for raising the debt ceiling—the amount that Congress authorizes the Treasury to borrow to pay for the budget Congress has already approved. In mid-May, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner warned that the debt ceiling had been reached, risking a potential default on US Treasury securities. Marred in debate, Congress stretched the debt ceiling approval to late July. Then the markets spoke. The S&P 500 Index cratered 17% in two weeks. August 2 was the absolute deadline for the Treasury to continue making payments to fund the government, including Social Security checks. Congress passed the Budget Control Act of 2011 on that deadline. Two days later, Standard & Poor’s downgraded the credit rating of US debt from AAA to AA+ with a negative outlook.

Tariffs are terrible policy. Anyone who took Macroeconomics 101 knows this. Mass deportation of any significant amount of the labor force will cause instability in the labor market and reignite inflationary pressures. Government spending is part of economic growth. Austerity causes stubborn and self-reinforcing economic recessions, ask Greece.

But markets won’t wait to react; they will anticipate bad moves and price them. Markets have the power to force lawmakers and egomaniacal executives to shift course. For that reason, I remain unapologetically optimistic about investing for the long term. Volatility spikes in the interim provide opportunities for those who prepare and exercise discipline. I’ll be ready. Will you?

To those who celebrate. 

Lower taxes and less regulation are driving exuberance in markets today. That’s plain dollars and sense. But be careful what you’ve wished for and now achieved.

The independence of the Federal Reserve should not be taken lightly. US exceptionalism is driven by the dollar’s status as the global reserve currency and our stable financial markets. The sacrosanctity of monetary policy cannot be mixed with politics. This is a third rail that should never be touched. Jerome Powell should do all he can to keep his job and avoid letting a loyalist be placed in his seat.

Our military power and foreign policy are equally important to our strength as a nation, despite all of their flaws. Since the end of World War II, we have defended democracy around the globe at great expense. Here I will tread lightly, as this is far from my area of expertise. But to back down against Putin in Ukraine seems to me a grave mistake. Bullying our allies and ripping up decades of global policy that have kept peace seems reckless. I hope these things will not come to pass.

There’s the debt and the deficit to consider. We’ve made promises to ourselves that have not been funded. There are only two ways out—raise taxes or cut spending. We most likely need to do both. I applaud efficiency and attempts to detect waste and fraud. (That’s why I thought properly funding the IRS was a good idea) An Elon Musk-style reorganization of the federal government sounds like a disaster. Blowing it all up to start over is not a viable option, as appealing as it sounds. We cannot wall ourselves off from the impacts of pulling the social safety net. Are you willing to tolerate an explosion of homelessness among our most vulnerable populations? Do you want bread lines around your corner and the spike in crime that will inevitably follow?  Perhaps Mark Zuckerberg can hide in his Hawaiian bunker, but most of us will still live in the real world.

I value decency, respect, decorum, politeness, unity, and compassion in leaders. Color me old-fashioned for yearning for the blandness of a Mitt Romney or a Jimmy Carter. I’d gladly pay a little more in taxes to shield my children from the mean-spirited rhetoric we will soon have again at our helm.

I believe in the best of America and Americans. I see how we treat each other in real life, face to face. We are not what we see on TV and read online. The Rs and the Ds are not our enemies; they are our neighbors. The government is not evil; it is us. We get the government we deserve because we elect our leaders. And there’s a whole wide world out there waiting to embrace you if you’ll simply turn off the 24-hour cycle of doom and get out in it.

But be warned, the price of filet mignon is through the roof.

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You can watch the full interview here: Fiduciary In All Things

Kinder told me about his latest book – The Three Domains of Freedom. In it, he describes how everyone has the ability to be present in the moment through mindfulness. This is the first domain of freedom – Each Moment is Yours. In the second domain – Your Life is Yours – Kinder revisits the core tenets of Life Planning: each person must find their purpose in life and pursue it. Once taking control of your life, you break the bonds and limitations that kept you from finding fulfillment and happiness.

Kinder has taught mindfulness and life planning for many years. What is new in this book is the third domain – Civilization is Yours. He posits that because we create our society, we as individuals have the power to guide and change it. In a time when decency, truth, and democracy are at risk, this feels like the existential question of the day. And while it may seem pie in the sky to even contemplate that mindfulness could be a solution, I applaud George Kinder for shouting his ideas from the rooftop.

Kinder’s proposed solution is to create a Fiduciary In All Things (F.I.A.T.) standard for all corporations, nonprofits, and governmental agencies. He believes this one sentence of legislation would hold entities accountable to all stakeholders instead of our current limited liability system. It’s a big idea that would shift one of capitalism’s bedrock principles, which holds corporations only accountable to shareholders.

Source: fiduciaryinallthings.com via George Kinder

Over the years, human society has been shaped by visionaries with bold ideas. Visionaries like George Kinder suggest that something as seemingly trivial as mindfulness can change the world. I happen to think he is on to something. After the interview, George shared with me an idea to have two economists debate the F.I.A.T. standard and what it means for investors, profits, and the future of capitalism. We needed that debate yesterday, so let’s make it happen.

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