Apex Money Posts

Travel is No Cure for the Mind [More to That] – “Travel is the answer much of us look to when we feel the automation of life. The routine of waking up, getting ready, going to work, eating the same lunch, sitting in meetings, getting off work, going home, eating dinner, relaxing, going to sleep, and then doing it all over again can feel like a never-ending road that is housed within the confines of a mundane box.”

I really like how Lawrence has reframed a powerful idea into a more visually appealing Daily Box of Experience. And then ties it into travel and vacations, specifically long/slow travel, and bringing it all back again.

It’s a fun ride.

This may come as no surprise to you but… market predictions are irrelevant.

Wall St. Is at It Again, Making Irrelevant Market Predictions [The New York Times] – “How wrong can these guesses be? Paul Hickey, a founder of Bespoke Investment Group, compared the yearly Wall Street predictions and actual market results starting with the forecast for Dec. 31, 2000.

He found that the Wall Street consensus only ever predicted gains, every single year, of about 8.8 percent on average. Of course, there were big losses in some years, as well as larger-than-expected rallies in others, so the variance between actual annual performance and the prediction was huge — an average gap of 14.2 percentage points.”

14.2%!!!! That’s terrible!

It’s December 20th and while we’re still many days away from Christmas and the New Year, we will be taking a break until January 2nd.

It’s been a pleasure sharing money and money-adjacent articles with you this past year, we hope you’ve gotten a lot of value out of the work you’ve seen through Apex. There are a lot of creators out there and we hope to shine a small light on as many as we can!

But, with the holidays is a good opportunity to rest and recharge, which we will be doing until the new year.

We wish you and yours a restful and relaxing holiday break.

See you next year!

Messing Up the Closest Thing to a Sure Thing in the Stock Market [The Wall Street Journal] – “Index funds are a great way to match the performance of the market. So why do so many investors end up falling short?”

Because you futz with it! Leave it alone! 😆

I’m only in my mid-40s and many years away from when I’d be preparing my finances for retirement, but I know it’s something that requires careful attention.

To help me better understand both the finances and the psychology of this important transition period, I always turn to my friend Fritz’s blog, The Retirement Manifesto. He does a good job breaking it down and explaining it in really easy to understand terms.

10 Steps To Prepare Your Finances For Retirement [The Retirement Manifesto] – “After years of saving during your working years, what changes should you make to prepare your finances for retirement? 

When your paycheck stops, you’ll depend on your portfolio to fund your living expenses.

It’s a scary shift in the way you use your money.“

Also, this article is really good too – What I’ve Learned Writing 400 Articles About Retirement.

A lot of great investing lessons in this post:

7 Lessons From 2024 [Charlie Bilello] – “Including dividends, the S&P 500 is now up over 29% this year. That sounds abnormally high, but is actually more common than you might think. The S&P 500 has finished with a total return above 25% in 26 out of 96 years since 1928. That’s 27% of the time.”

If you’ve had chocolate made for the European Union and compare it with the same brand and product in the United States, then you know that the EU stuff tastes better.

We love buying Cadbury chocolate in the UK whenever we visit.

And it is better. It’s not psychological, it’s for real.

Battle of the chocolate bars [somewhere on Github] – “Cocoa content is key in defining chocolate types. Regulations on the cocoa content in chocolates vary by region and type of chocolate. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) mandates “Milk Chocolate shall contain, on a dry matter basis, not less than 25% cocoa solids.”

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requires milk chocolates to contain at least 10% cocoa solids. Hershey’s KitKat just about meets this benchmark, at 11%.

European chocolates have higher standards, and mandate a minimum of 35% cocoa solids for milk chocolate.”

Maybe not enough for a full-time job for too many folks but this sounds like a fun side hustle.

A 60-second documentary on Meteorite Hunter Roberto Vargas:

If you’re curious, the website he’s using in the video is from the American Meteorological Society’s tracker of reported “fireballs.”

While the documentary makes it sounds like he knows of a precise location, it’s most definitely NOT.

The AMS website does it’s best to “triangulate” the probable location based on fireball reports but I suspect there’s a massive amount of hunting involved.

If there is one certainty in life, it’s that humanity is capable of making a great thing terrible just to “increase shareholder value” (ie. make more money).

The Great Light Bulb Conspiracy [IEEE Spectrum] – “The Phoebus cartel engineered a shorter-lived lightbulb and gave birth to planned obsolescence”

The post today has a valuable core message (that I agree with) though the author gets there by painting a bit of a messy picture.

There will be parts of the post that cause an emotional reaction, like his thoughts on therapy, followed by religion, etc. Maybe the point was to get a reaction… but keep going.

This post is a bit like coloring in a picture but all your colors aren’t inside the lines. Don’t let the coloring (text) drive you away from the picture (message) – it’s important.

Happiness is a choice [We’re Gonna Get Those Bastards] – “Happiness is internal, not external. Here’s the internal monologue: I won’t be happy unless I get that million-dollar bonus. And then they get an $800,000 bonus, and they’re miserable. Do we all realize how insane this is? How about, I will be happy no matter what bonus I get. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t aspire to be financially successful, and money is important, but not enough to ruin your life for an entire year until the next bonus comes around which will ruin your life for another year.”