Warren Buffett repeatedly says his favorite holding period is forever. He’s held Berkshire “forever” but most of his other stocks haven’t lasted that long. Still, this is one of Buffett’s mantras, held as gospel, that tends to lead investors astray.

Anytime you deal with stocks, you also deal with the fact that the business might change. Tying a stock to a predetermined holding period is a bad idea. I would like to think most people understand that, but I guess not.

In the recent Berkshire letter, Buffett actually took the time to qualify his “forever” statement: Continue Reading…

The 2017 version of the Credit Suisse Global Investment Returns Yearbook is out and available for download. The Yearbook, for those who don’t know, is a great resource for historical returns nerds like me. It takes a long view of market returns from 1900 to today for five asset classes and 23 countries.

The available Yearbook is only the summary version but it still has 60 pages worth of great info and charts like this: Continue Reading…

Sports analogies for investing get overused. I’m going to continue that tradition here (don’t hate me).

The point of having a plan is so you can effectively play both sides of the court. Without a plan, you essentially play offense or defense but rarely both, leaving yourself exposed on the other end.

The typical mistake of buying high and selling low is repeated ad nauseam. There’s a good reason. Without a plan, the “plan” devolves into choosing one over the other. That mentality drives the focus on whatever has happened most recently in the market. Great returns become chased returns and poor returns are fled from. Continue Reading…