Author: Jim Wang

A Few Thoughts on Spending Money [Morgan Housel on Collab Fund] – “There are two ways to use money. One is as a tool to live a better life. The other is as a yardstick of status to measure yourself against others. Many people aspire for the former but get caught up chasing the latter.”

This next piece may be titled “investment” but it’s not just where you put your money. It’s also about where you put your time. It’s a good way to think about it (it’s long but well worth it):

Deciding whether an investment is worthwhile [Jason Cohen on A Smart Bear] – “Of course you’ll never know if you made the best choice, even with hindsight. So the goal isn’t to make the “best choice,” but rather to make an excellent choice. To invest wisely, with the information you have.”

Know someone who is about to retire? Or has recently retired? Check out this viral TEDx talk by Riley Moynes (many thanks to Fritz from The Retirement Manifesto for writing about it!):

When you’re young, you don’t think about your mortality. You don’t limit yourself because life feels limitless.

As you age, this starts to change a little. For some, that change is both abrupt and quite soon. There’s a lot we can learn about ourselves and our lives if we take the time to learn from others.

You might not identify with someone who is much older than you but we’re all one diagnosis away from being someone in our first and only story for today:

‘My life will be short. So on the days I can, I really live’: 30 dying people explain what really matters [The Guardian] – “Anything that doesn’t make my heart sing is less important to me these days. I don’t sweat the small stuff any more. Life is too short for cleaning. The laundry pile will wait. And if I want to eat a piece of cake, I damn well do.”

This article can be difficult to read, especially if someone you know has been affected by disease, but a powerful reminder of what’s truly important in life.

Well if it isn’t Friday!

Some Friendly Advice [Humble Dollar] – “The social aspect of retirement is more important than many of us assume. Loneliness is not something we want to face in our later years. Some quiet time is needed, but healthy solitude is not the same as loneliness. As author Arthur C. Brooks notes, “The kind of people who don’t know how to manage social interactions (i.e. friendships) outside of work get lonelier when they retire—and that describes a lot of successful people I know.””

Which Financial Decisions Require Extra Attention and Which Don’t [The Financial Buff] – “We face all types of choices and decisions in personal finance. Which decisions should we be more careful of and which decisions can we “wing it”? This distinction is important because if you give equal attention to every decision, either you’ll get bogged down by months of research on everything or you’ll make a casual decision that sets you back a huge sum. You should prioritize your mental energy for things that really require it.”

How to enable Stolen Device Protection on your iOS device [The Verge] – “Our phones have become so intrinsic to our lives that a stolen phone can be a disaster rather than simply an inconvenience. To help prevent that, Apple has added Stolen Device Protection to its iPhones as additional protection, especially when you’re away from your familiar haunts.”

Finally, something a little wild… how about some rocks?

Crazy Stones: The Chinese Gamblers Betting Millions on Rocks [Sixth Tone] – “Gambling on the contents of uncut jadeite stones has a long history along the China-Myanmar border. Now, livestreamers are taking the practice nationwide.” This was back in 2021 so I don’t know if they’re still doing it… but the fact that they ever did is wild!

See you next week!

That’s an interesting question right? Turns out the answer is yes.

It’s also a question that Eddy Elfenbein has answered in his latest Crossing Wall Street (CWS) Market Review for January 23, 2024. “I recently ran the numbers. Since 1957, the S&P 500 has made a new all-time high more than 1,100 times. (I could even be sneaky with the data because the market didn’t pass its 1929 high for 25 years, but I purposely started after that.) If we were to invest in only those days following a new high, then the market has risen at an average annualized rate of just over 15%. When the market hasn’t been at an all-time high, it’s gained an average of just 6.7%. The market has performed more than twice as well when it’s been at a new all-time high compared to when it hasn’t been. Buy high and sell even higher.” (emphasis mine)

Fascinating, right? BTW, Eddy Elfenbein and Crossing Wall Street is a great blog (and newsletter) to read. No fluff, straightforward, and easy to read.

A Lifetime of Wisdom [Humble Dollar] – “Charlie Munger, whodied recently at age 99, always had a colorful turn of phrase. But entertaining as he was, his comments were also invariably full of wisdom. In fact, taken together, Munger’s ideas offered investors a masterclass in investing. Here are some highlights:”

This next one is really fun, prepare to be really surprised.

Thirteen Discoveries Made About Human Evolution in 2023 [Smithsonian Mag] – “This huge amount of meat suggests that Neanderthals may have gathered in larger groups, perhaps seasonally, and had some kind of food storage or preservation techniques. Furthermore, the dating of elephant bones at the site covers a span of about 2,000 years, demonstrating a behavior that continued in the same place across generations.”

Happy Tuesday!

Our first post today is one you probably didn’t expect to see in Psychology Today – it’s about how to discuss money in a romantic relationship.

Among other things, we learn that communication is like voting, it’s better if you do it early and often.

How to Discuss Money in a Romantic Relationship [Psychology Today] – “Fighting and bickering about money is the number-one source of tension and stress in romantic relationships. Winning the lottery with a scratch ticket or hitting the jackpot in Las Vegas might alleviate money problems in your relationship, but then again, I wouldn’t bet on it (no pun intended).”

Peter Lynch: The Wisdom of Walking Away [Kingswell] – “[Peter Lynch] earned a mind-boggling 29.2% annual return between 1977 and 1990, ballooning Magellan’s value to $14 billion by the time of his retirement. And Lynch did it by combining dogged (some might call it workaholic) research with a common sense appreciation for opportunities right under his nose. […] Unlike so many others, he knew when it was time to walk away — and then did so in 1990, at the height of his fame, with no muss, fuss, or lingering looks back.”

5 Things I Wish I Knew Before Retiring [Physician on FIRE] – “I recently retired after a 40-year career as a financial executive and accounting professor. My wife retired from being a busy pathologist at a regional hospital in Pennsylvania. […] It has not been too difficult, but we could have had a much softer landing with a little guidance. Here are five things I wish I had known in the years leading up to my retirement.” A good mix of financial and psychological advice.

What do you think about predictions?

I think they’re fun.

But I don’t think anyone ever puts too much stock into predictions.

We enjoy them because of the escapism, a look at what could be in the coming months and years, but no one truly believes them. In sports, we love reading them because it lets us enjoy a sport even though it’s not being played. In finance, we pretend we know where the markets will go.

Practically every prediction of the markets in 2023 thought they’d crash. We were on the verge of a recession. It did the exact opposite.

2023: A Year in Returns [Novel Investor] – “2022 ended with fears of a recession, rising interest rates, and higher and rising inflation costs. It was the first year in a long time where both stocks and bonds were down. “Experts” predicted more of the same. 2023 proved them wrong. A diversified portfolio, made up of broader asset classes, returned 12.8% for the year. US, International, and Emerging Market indexes, broadly, were up double digits. In fact, the S&P 500 even set a new all-time high!”

Multigenerational Living Often Makes Sense. That Doesn’t Make It Easy [The Walrus] – “OW THAT I live with my mom, my preferred mode of communication with her is by text. We’re in each other’s faces enough these days. Her first messages come in the morning, before sunrise, when she hears my heavy tread from her suite downstairs in our Vancouver Special, a mainstay structure in the city’s residential areas. Once deemed boxy and cookie cutter, the architectural equivalent of a Honda Element, Vancouver Specials are now touted for their ability to accommodate two households, one on each floor. I’m in the kitchen, making my eight-year-old’s school lunch, when my phone buzzes and my mother puts in her breakfast request.”

It’s been a while since I’ve shared a “heist” of some kind. Today, I fix that:

The Billion-dollar Ponzi Scheme That Hooked Warren Buffett and the U.S. Treasury [The Atlantic] – “Yet there, at his life’s lowest, the remarkable happened. A contraption he’d rigged up in his driveway—a car trailer decked with solar panels and a heavy battery—got the attention of people with real money. Carpoff could scarcely have imagined it. He’d never gone to college and had no experience in green technology. His invention, he thought, was “crazy, harebrained.” But investors saw the makings of a clean-energy revolution.”

Have a great weekend!

One of the fascinating topics many people talk or write about is the transition into retirement.

You can read a million articles about the finances of retirement. How much you have to save, how to draw it down, the safe withdrawal rate, different retirement accounts, etc.

When many people retire, they leave a big part of their lives and identity – their job. They may have kids that have grown up, moved out of the house, and so leaving a job means they lose another big piece of their lives. It’s a difficult transition.

That’s why I loved reading our first article from Fritz of Retirement Manifesto – it’s good if you’re about to retire, in retirement, or just know someone about to make this transition.

5 Things You Need To Know Before You Retire [The Retirement Manifesto] – “Once you’ve retired, you realize there’s much more to a successful retirement than money. There are a lot of other risks beyond the financial ones. Risks of becoming depressed, getting bored, being lonely, and feeling lost. Focusing on these risks is a critical, and often overlooked, step in the retirement planning process.”

Keeping on the retirement theme, here’s the second shoe in the form of a post about retirement from Sundar Mohan Rao on Humble Dollar:

More Than Money [Humble Dollar] – “In the brief time I’ve been retired, I’ve quickly learned that money—despite being the centerpiece of most retirement literature—isn’t the sole answer to my retirement needs. Instead, there are many ingredients required for happiness.”

Historical U.S. Stock Market Returns Through 2023 [A Wealth of Common Sense] – “If you want consistency, the stock market is not the place for you. Or is it? Returns are certainly inconsistent over the short run. However, longer run returns are relatively consistent if you extend your time horizon.” If you learn this one lesson, you will have conquered investing.

See you tomorrow!

The first time I’d heard the term Last Lecture, it was from Professor Randy Pausch of Carnegie Mellon University. My biggest (academic) regret was not taking his class, Building Virtual Worlds. There was a massive waiting list and I let that deter me.

His Last Lecture is a fantastic talk about achieving your childhood dreams and is a must watch for every single human being. He gave it on September 18th, 2007 and would die on July 25th, 2008 of pancreatic cancer.

Our first article comes from Graham Weaver, founder and managing partner of the private equity firm Alpine Investors, and a lecturer at Stanford Graduate School of Business. He also gave a Last Lecture on how to live an asymmetric life. Our first article is a blog post that covers what he talked about (in case you weren’t in the mood to watch it):

How to Live an Asymmetric Life [Graham Weaver] – “I learned that, yes, it is possible to reduce one’s downside, but it is not possible to eliminate it. The better strategy is to seek opportunities where the possibility of gains wildly outweighs what you can lose, which is typically capped at 1x your investment.” It starts with a brief story about investing but the meat is in body of the article when he writes about how to build an asymmetric life, very well done and starts off with a banger – Do Hard Things.

100 ways to slightly improve your life without really trying [The Guardian] – “Whether it’s taking fruit to work (and to the bedroom!), being polite to rude strangers or taking up skinny-dipping, here’s a century of ways to make life better, with little effort involved” There are some silly ideas on this but you may find a few one’s you’ll try.

Why do some artists become famous? [Big Think on Youtube]

It’s Jim again and for the first time in 2024 – so Happy New Year!

I want to start off the year with something bright and cheery as we look back on the ways the world got better in 2023.

The Year in Cheer: 177 ways the world got better in 2023 [Reasons to be cheerful] – “Cancer fatalities in the US are down 33 percent from 1991, amounting to 3.8 million deaths avoided. […] In California, a 400-acre oil field is being transformed into a nature preserve. […] Curved blades in next-gen hydroelectric turbines allow 99 percent of aquatic life to safely swim through them.”

OK one post looking back, one post looking forward. Those are the rules!

24 Rules for 2024 [Jonathan Clements on Humble Dollar] – “WHAT SHOULD YOU DO with your money next year? The same things you should have done this year, and the year before, and the year before that. The rules for a successful life—financially and otherwise—are, I believe, pretty timeless. What rules? Here are 24 of my favorites.” #3 is always good advice but don’t skip #12.

Finally, I love a good allegory and Katie from Money with Katie draws up a great one about money and preferences:

Learning to Like Beer in a World Full of Champagne Propaganda [Money with Katie] – “The families we see on TV? Upper middle class, at least. The personalities we see online? Most live (or pretend to live) top 1% lifestyles, often fueled by the very fact that the job of “influencer” pays handsomely, even if your niche is “van life rock climber.” The average car payment in the US is $729, which means—depending on where you live—even a short trip to the grocery store will probably surround you with relative opulence.”

Hello hello Apexian!

This marks the final Apex Money post of the year, as we will be taking the next week off. J.D. will return to kick off 2024 with posts that he forgot to share in 2023! 😂

In true end of year fashion, we will start with a post that looks back on 2023:

Six charts that defined the markets in 2023 [Axios] – “Egg prices peaked at $4.82 a dozen in January and then started, er, cracking, but falling prices for these staple ovoids didn’t curb the Great American Egg Price Freakout of 2023.” Once you get past the first chart, which is about GDP, you get into charts that reflect public consensus and understanding – like egg prices, housing prices, etc.

Happily Ever After [Humble Dollar] – “In late 2021, I split my portfolio in two. One part I’ll use to fund my retirement, while the other part I’ll leave to my two kids. This “bequest” portion consists of my three Roth accounts, which are roughly a quarter of my overall portfolio. Because I don’t foresee ever touching this money, I’ve invested the entire sum in stocks.” Clever.

Wealth is the Control of Time [Investment Talk] – “When you think about it, money is a funny thing. Over the centuries, a diverse list such as seashells, massive stones, gold nuggets, salt, beaver pelts, and pieces of paper were all accepted as money. For many people today, money is just pixels on a screen. While certain forms of money performed better than others, its function remained the same across millennia—to enable time and energy expended in the present to be exchanged elsewhere and at a later date.” Money = time!

Finally, as this is the last post of the year, I want to say thank you for subscribing, reading, and enjoying this little project of J.D. and mine. We do it for fun, we hope you enjoy it, and we wish you a prosperous and healthy new year!

J.D. will be back on January 1st (or thereabouts) with our first edition of 2024!