Weekend Reading – Bitcoin, small-cap stock party, retirement past 65, ETF suggestions and more
Welcome to my latest Weekend Reading edition – I hope you had a good week!?
Here are my articles from the week that was:
Got $1 million? If so, you too can likely afford a teardown home in Ottawa these days.
The timeless investing advice of John C. Bogle, founder of Vanguard, is on display in his well-written Little Book of Common Sense Investing. The summary in 50 words and less: a portfolio constructed of index funds is the only investment that effectively guarantees an investor of their fair share of stock market returns.
Enjoy these articles and see you here again soon! Time to make my NFL predictions for week #14.
Here is an article about the new retirement era – working past age 65. From the article: “There are already plenty of examples of people working to 70. Almost 30 per cent of senior men at that age said they worked in 2015, as did 17.1 per cent of women. These people are the trendsetters for the era of delayed retirement.”
Bitcoin hasn’t replaced cash yet but investors don’t care. “The increasing value of bitcoin made it even less attractive as a way to pay for things. Most people don’t want to pay now with a dollar that could be worth twice as much next week.”
A Wealth of Common Sense wrote about the small-cap stock party that has been happening throughout 2017.
Steadyhand blog told us you shouldn’t worry about interest rates, nor chase dividend yield.
Crazy how well some bloggers are doing with their online income and other passive income. Kudos to Retireby40.
Want to keep more money in your pocket? Of course you do!
Check out my Deals page where you can save hundreds or even thousands of dollars using better saving and investing solutions.
A reminder about this free trial to unbiased stock and ETF suggestions in Canada.
Thanks to this partnership you can start a free, risk-free trial account funded with $1,000 of ModernAdvsior’s money. You will also get a $50 bonus when you open and fund a new account.
Using my promo code with BMO, I can save you a few hundred bucks when you open your BMO InvestorLine account.
And still other reads…
Ryan Modesto believes writing is important (when it comes to investing). I agree, but I’m biased because I run this site. Like Ryan, writing about my personal finance and investing tales (and woes) keeps me engaged, allows me test my theories, challenges the status quo including my assumptions, and hopefully helps others by offering a perspective. As long as this is fun, I’ll keep doing it.
Stay tuned to my blog because next week I’m giving away a book – just in time to send it in the mail to one lucky reader for the holidays. Thanks for being a fan – Mark
Mark
My name is Mark Seed - the founder, editor and owner of My Own Advisor. As my own DIY financial advisor, I'm looking to start semi-retirement soon, sooner than most. Find out how, what I did, and what you can learn to tailor your own financial independence path. Join the newsletter read by thousands each day, always FREE.
re: the new retirement era – working past age 65
Sounds a lot like the old retirement era. Guess Picketty’s assumption may be right after all: the middle class (and all its trappings) are an anomaly.
re: (PF) bloggers & online income
Might be more a sign of how lost the general populace is rather than how well said blogger is doing. After all, with almost 100,000 personal finance books available to us (from across the last 100+ years), there really isn’t anything new under the sun. The basic tenants never change, and if you do it right, that’s all you’ll ever require (i.e. you won’t need to visit PF blogs or buy any affiliated merchandise). Perhaps operating a PF blog is akin to shooting fish in a barrel. That aside, well done, Rx40! Also nice to see a good cross section of life on his “Goal” spreadsheet.
re: Bitcoin
Oh, where to start?!
Guess the first thing to point out is the leading bubble indicator: the know-nothings (“I really don’t understand Bitcoin”) who use an antithetical investment strategy (dividend growth) are now talking about Bitcoin. Even my 73 y.o. uncle is talking about it! But…all the talk is price-centric. Which means the market price is being driver by exactly two things: fear and greed.
We humans are so laughable. Where was the stampede and fury when BTC went from $1 to $1,000 — a 1,000x increase in 2012-2013? The 2017 mania has provided a mere ~20x increase, but because it is a perceived large number (compared to other consumer goods), people go crazy even though it’s a fraction of its previous parabolic move…which crashed by 80% (vast ignorance of the acceleration components with the recent parabola!).
It’s like the dotcom bubble; people were buying the products (e.g. Pets.com) instead of investing in the underlying technology (the Internet). Bitcoin is a mere product which utilizes blockchain tech. There could literally be billions of different cryptocurrencies in circulation, the value is in the foundational technology, not the product itself. That said, there is obviously a manic disconnect between price and value at the moment.
Not only that, but BTC was created and designed to be a debt settlement product (think credit card), yet only a very small fraction of participants are using BTC as a payment utility. Nearly 100% of the price moment has been derived from network growth (think Facebook), which has been derived from…fear and greed. It’s currently only a long game, and that’s why the longs are “winning” (i.e. driving the price up), but with BTC futures soon to hit the market, it will be a battle between shorts and longs. Yet neither side will be using BTC as a payment function. BTC will remain nothing but a speculation on price until some kind of regulation is applied.
To quote a G&M article, “As Keynes used to say, the markets can stay irrational longer than one can remain solvent. What is happening to bitcoins is not rational – how can it be when bitcoins cannot be valued. As there is no way to value bitcoins, there is nothing to guide or help a buyer or seller make rational decisions.” ~George Athanassakos, Professor of Finance, University of Western Ontario
Well done to all who got in and made some tremendous profits (tax free as I’m assuming this is some kind of currency exchange taxation grey area). The rest of us are jealous for trying to be rational instead of a Capitalist! 😉
“SAD”
BitCoin is gonna Bite a lot of people in the wrong places. It will be a said day for those when this thing crashes. Digital currency is on its way (Gov regulated) – tied to the dollar – but BitCoin it tied to nothing and last time I checked – you can’t buy any groceries with it. USELESS!
I really don’t understand Bitcoin. How can you deal with a currency that fluctuates by 50% in a day??