Most investors in the stock market lose.

In his book, The Big Short, Michael Lewis states: “The willingness of a Wall Street investment bank to pay me hundreds of thousands of dollars to dispense investment advice to grown-ups remains a mystery to me to this day. I was twenty-four years old, with no experience of, or interest in guessing which stocks and bonds would rise and which would fall. Believe me when I tell you that I hadn’t the first clue. I’d never taken an accounting course, never run a business, never even had savings of my own to manage.”

J. P. Morgan Chase CEO Jaime Diamon had an income of $36 million in 2023!

A general surgeon has an annual income of $400 thousand. A general surgeon needs 90 years to earn what Dimon earns in one. (36 million divided by 400 thousand)

And who pays the Wall Street incomes? Look in the mirror.

To minimize these expenses,

On October 1, we published an article titled Making 16% annually using derivatives. Yesterday, one of our members asked how we select the strike price and premium. We are grateful for this important question.

A strike price just out of the money produces the best returns. So, if SPY trades at $569.28, that is at the money, and just out of the money is $570.

And how do we select the premium?

Making 16% annually using derivatives

The link below leads to a relevant Forbes article by William Baldwin, updated on Dec 14, 2020.

In yesterday’s post, we wrote about the importance of saving in order to continue our lifestyle into retirement.

SAVING THE RIGHT AMOUNT

The earlier in life we begin regular saving, the smaller the percentage of our income needed in our retirement fund in order to continue our working years’ lifestyle into retirement.

The ultimate size of that fund is a product of three variables:

1. the percentage of our income which we save
2. the return on investment we get on our savings
3. the length of the saving period

Here is a test.

Is any one of these three more important than the other two?

If so, which one?

Let us assume an annual income of 70,000 dollars, 10% of which we save into our retirement fund and are able to invest at 6% annually.

In the following table, we increase each variable separately, by a third.

You and your spouse might not be in the same age group as the couple above but let us hope ou get there.

77% of adults want to age in their homes. There is a number of issues connected with that, such as climbing stairs, narrow doors, which might not be able to manage a wheelchair, and more. We talk about childproofing a home. We also need to look at ageproofing our house. 25% of older adults fall in their homes every year.

Here, we delve into the financial aspects of aging. It’s crucial to have the necessary resources and manage them effectively. For instance, round-the-clock home care can cost between $ 25,000 and $30,000 a month. That is a significant financial commitment that requires careful planning.

The average age in North America is almost 40 years.  In some African countries, the average age is 17! What should North Americans do?

Greetings, everyone,

You will enjoy the presentation which follows. 

Modern Investment For September 18, 2024

The presentation is about 30 minutes long, and you could learn something valuable from watching it.

Contact me if you have questions.

I send my best personal regards,

Milan 😃

Yesterday, I published a post titled “What to do in a declining market.” Selling covered calls on SPY, an exchange-traded fund tracking the S&P 500, which represents the American economy, earns significant premium income.

The closer the expiration date is to the time of writing covered calls, the greater the percentage premium income.

With SPY, it has been possible, for quite a while, to sell covered calls first thing in the morning with the expiration date at the end of the same day.

Last Monday’s Wall Street Journal had an article describing many individual securities and exchange-traded funds, which now make it possible to do that as well. That is new.

To read the article, click on the following link.

The best thing to do in a declining market such as we are currently experiencing, is to maintain your asset allocation, whatever it is. 50/50 is good, as is 60/40 or 55/45 – the ratio is not important as long as it has a significant part in cash or near cash.

This will result in buying more bargains as the market drops or cashing in profits as the market rises. The shorter the expiration date, the greater the percentage of premium income.

SPY is an exchange-traded fund that tracks the S&P 500. It is the best security to use.

With SPY, it is possible to sell covered calls first thing in the morning with the expiration date at the end of the same day.

Yesterday, we sold covered calls on SPY when the market opened with an expiration date at the end of the same day and got

An Internet search for “investing” will produce a vast number of hits. Most hedge funds will manage your money for a 2 and 20 fee. They charge 2% of the size of your portfolio plus 20% of any growth with no sharing in any declines.

Many will manage your money for what seems to be a modest 1% annual fee. However, let us look at it through a hypothetical 30-year investment timeframe during which the market returns an average of 7% annually.

$10,000 invested annually for 30 years at a return on investment of 7% produces $1,086,852.96.

Subtract from the seemingly modest 1% annual fee, and you get $895,451.69.

The $191,401.27 difference is not modest.

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