Financial Planning

I recently purchased 6 copies of The Psychology of Money, by Morgan Housel for my son and his college friends. I told them to consider this their first graduation gift – a year early – and I decided to provide it in advance in hopes they would all start thinking about their financial futures now. Why now?

I steadfastly ignored articles about Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the new ChatGPT – the language processing tool that can assist you with composing emails, essays and, yes, blogs. I ignored it until I listened to a podcast that described some of the ways AI may help transform the economy. Autonomous vehicles is an obvious one that leaps to mind.

A bank used to run a TV ad during the SEC Game of the Week where a man, talking about retirement, says he plans to do “absolutely nothing.” His wife then leans in and says, “He means it.” That’s not a plan for retirement, that’s a plan for a vacation. Be careful not to confuse the two.

My inbox gets pounded like new shingles after a windstorm on a daily basis. Mutual fund companies, firms selling technology “solutions” to problems I didn’t know I had, financial advice columns, etc. Recently, on successive days, I received emails with the following headlines from two different publications:

I recently read a blog titled, A Few Beliefs, by Morgan Housel. He wrote the book, The Psychology of Money, that describes views toward wealth that are quite similar to those of us at Moneywatch Advisors. Below are 10 of Housel’s beliefs that I think are spot on and also timely:

The Serenity Prayer contains the following phrase: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.” Not only good life advice but outstanding investing advice, particularly during a declining stock market as the first four months of 2022 have been.

In 1999, the French golfer Jean Van de Velde held a three-shot lead as he headed to the 72nd, and last hole, of the British Open. All he had to do to win arguably the most important golf tournament on the Continent was to score a double bogey or better – a 6 on a par 4. An almost insurmountable lead. Here is what happened:

In a recent article the author Tim Urban wrote about a concept he calls “depressing math.” In a nutshell, this concept comes from actually counting the number of times that we will get to experience something we enjoy from now through the rest of our lives. It feels like we have countless weeks ahead of us but, in fact, they are quite countable.

University of Kentucky men’s basketball coach, John Calipari, played himself in a cameo appearance on the Showtime series Billions last week. He, as usual, was brilliant. In fact, his advice to the fictional hedge fund traders was so spot on he might actually make a good financial planner some day. Here are some highlights followed by a link to the 1:47 video:

I am obsessed with Succession, the HBO Max series about the uber-wealthy and powerful family vying to take over their father’s media empire. While exploring the motivations and psyches of truly terrible people, the show excels at character development and features brilliant writing. In the 2nd season, there is a scene where they provide striking perspective on wealth.