This week’s The Distillery is a bit different in regards to the delivery of the content. A few of us from the office attended a financial planning conference in Austin earlier this week. While there, we had the pleasure of attending a presentation by Shawn Achor, a Positive Psychologist who graduated from Harvard University. Shawn’s company, Aspirant, is dedicated to the study of those people in the population who are happier than the average (i.e. the outliers). From his research he aims to gain insight into how to increase happiness for not only the employees of the companies that hire him, but also for those of us who struggle with lower or average levels of happiness.

Happiness, or lack thereof, affects not only our personal lives and families, but also how we perform in school and at work, which often determines the success / outcome of our financial plans. If you have 12 minutes of time to invest, we hope you enjoy this captivating video by Shawn Achor.

This week’s The Distillery is a long but fascinating read that takes a look at what the author believes to be the 3 “Big Things” that will have a profound impact on the coming decades because they’re both transformational and ubiquitous: Demographics, wealth inequality, and access to information. Enjoy!

This week’s The Distillery brings up a real issue amongst retirees: spending down their savings. Retirees have worked so hard to save enough money to last them throughout Retirement, but once there, it’s hard to flip the switch in the other direction and begin winding it down. If there’s one takeaway from this week’s piece, it’s that the feeling is pervasive across retirees and you shouldn’t feel alone if you too feel this way.

With the weekend fast approaching, we encourage you to go out and feel good about spending that hard earned money, especially if you have a plan in place and your spending is aligned with you and your family’s values 😊

This week’s The Distillery offers refreshing insight into how much of a competitive advantage (or lack thereof) mutual funds actually have when making site visits to the companies and their executive teams they invest in. By now you should know that we at The Advocates invest specifically with funds that place an emphasis on empirical data and testing, and are implemented through a consistent and disciplined approach. So you can guess which side of the commentary we’re on!

This week’s The Distillery should provide a nice break from whatever task you may be entrenched in currently, while also offering just enough thought stimulation to energize you for the rest of your day.

Enjoy!

This week’s The Distillery offers up a good thought exercise for investors by exploring the findings from a recent academic paper which has gained popularity by calling into question the validity of stock picking. The author, Nick Maggiulli, does a good job summarizing the paper’s core thoughts and offering up his own, ultimately asking us to consider time in the overall equation of investing.

Enjoy!

This week’s The Distillery offers an interesting visual theory of market efficiency (prices fairly and accurately reflect all available information). Assuming that markets do eventually become efficient after us emotional beings react to said available information, how long does it take for markets to weigh the remainder of the available information? Days, weeks, months, years? At The Advocates we side on the credibility of 5-10 years, but click the link below to consider other alternative models.

This week’s The Distillery is a fascinating read about an often misunderstood topic: inflation and the effects of purchasing power. In fact, the author exposes a common myth that if you suspect future hyperinflation, you should sell stocks. The reverse is typically true, while your best move prior to a hyperinflationary environment is actually to take on more debt and use it to buy more stocks!

This week’s The Distillery addresses an interesting aspect of not just retiring early, but retiring early and then considering going back to work after an extended period of absence. How has your industry changed? Have your certifications expired? Is the technology landscape vastly different? While it’s easy (and enjoyable) to fantasize about retiring early, thinking through leaving retirement to return to work is not so easy (or fun) of an exercise.

This week’s The Distillery was timed perfectly with a conversation I had with a client the other day regarding delaying social security benefits and the current costs of doing so (withdrawing from your portfolio) versus the future benefits of delaying (increased SSI and survivor benefits). Kim Blanton of Squared Away, the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College’s blog, offers a fresh new perspective on delaying social security benefits by solving for the equivalent amount it would cost to purchase an annuity in the private market. We hope you enjoy!