I recently had the chance to reread A Random Walk Down Wall Street by Burton Malkiel as part of a work-related book club.
Having read the book in a business school class very early in my career, I promptly ignored its advice and became a securities analyst (a profession about which he makes a few disparaging remarks!) charged with analyzing companies and making buy-and-sell recommendations. I was guilty of most of the shortcomings Dr. Malkiel points to (for example, trying to pick winners), but at least I got to visit an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. Read more »
For those of you who watch or have heard of the hit series “Mad Men,” you’ll know that the show provides an interesting story line, some fascinating characters, and great commentary on the social mores and gender differences of the late ’50s and early ’60s.
I’ve been watching lately with an eye toward the financial side of life in that era. There are no credit cards to speak of—Don Draper, the main character, peels off cold cash when he asks his secretary to buy Christmas presents for his children. This is pre-401(k)s and IRAs, and Don and his band of not-so-merry marketers left behind whatever pensions they had coming to them when they broke with their old advertising agency to go out on their own. There is little if any dialogue concerning personal investing at all.
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As we sat around after a recent family cookout, talk turned to the stock market’s recent gyrations.
The older folks (I am, of course, in that camp) were grumbling about the spring slump in stocks. After listening to his middle-aged relatives talk about the damage to their retirement portfolios and their varied views on the market, my 20-something nephew, Rob, confidently said he saw no reason to fret.
“I just keep the zoom theory in mind,” he said.
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The other day, I was preparing to record a podcast for Vanguard.com on life events and asset allocation. I decided to veer away from the predictable “retirement is a life event” theme and concentrate on marriage, children, and divorce as life events that should stimulate some serious consideration of your asset allocation.
Then I happened upon this Wall Street Journal article, which made me pause.
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In June 1997, Chicago Tribune writer Mary Schmich penned a now-famous column titled “Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young.” In short, the column served as the speech that Ms. Schmich would give if she were asked to make a commencement address. The following year, the column went viral, if you will, in the form of the music single “Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen).”
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