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Posts by category

• Category: Blog
  • Pure Portfolios’ 2024 Client Letter
  • Pure Portfolios’ 2024 Reading List
• Category: Economy
  • Recession Signals that are Flashing Red
  • Myth Busting: What the Government Cannot Do
  • Don’t Believe Everything You Hear on Tariffs
  • Fed Cuts and Mortgage Rates Higher?
  • Unprecedented Uncertainty
  • The Resilience of the U.S. Economy
  • The Recession that Never Came
  • Just How Bad is Inflation?
  • How Does a Fed Taper Affect Market Volatility?
  • What’s in a Bear Market?
  • The Brilliance of “I Don’t Know”
  • I Keep Coming Back to One Question
  • Waking up After a Yearlong Coma
  • Some Things Will Never be the Same
  • Where Do We Go From Here?
  • The Market is Talking. Are You Listening?
  • What to Make of the “Election Uncertainty” Talk?
  • Your Wealth Manager Just Posted Record Profit Margins
  • Could the 2020 Election Derail the Stock Market?
  • Predicting the Next Recession
  • The Fed’s About-Face
  • So Much for Rising Rates
  • Don’t Be Afraid of the ‘R’ Word
  • Let’s Talk Yield Curve Inversion
  • The Housing Cycle
  • The Mystic of Rising Interest Rates
  • Tariff Gamesmanship?
  • Forget the Fed. Focus on Coordinated Global Tightening
  • What Happens if the U.S. Goes to War?
  • Interest Rates: Experts Stick to the Broken Clock Approach
• Category: feature
  • Bear Market Feedback is Gold
  • International Diversification: Looking Beyond the S&P 500
  • Avoid RMD Pitfalls: Smart Strategies for Retirees
• Category: Investing
  • The World’s Worst Investor
  • A Simple Case for Gold and Bitcoin
  • Turn Off the TV
  • Does it Still Make Sense to Own Bonds?
  • Closest Thing to a Fat Pitch in Investing
  • Tariff Talk: Client Q&A on Market Impact and Economic Risks
  • Why This Correction Hits Harder
  • Global Markets are Telling a Different Tariff Story
  • Fully Invested, Light on Cash
  • Err on the Side
  • No One Learns Anything in a Bull Market
  • Will Outsized U.S. Stock Returns Continue?
  • Tis the Season for Wall Street Forecasting VIII
  • Reckless Government Spending: How it Could Impact Your Investments
  • Could Future S&P 500 Returns Be Lower?
  • Consumer Sentiment and S&P Returns
  • The Danger of Recency Bias in Investment Decisions
  • Let’s Freak Out About the Election (Seriously)
  • What’s NOT Going to Change in 10 years?
  • This Market Signal is Flashing Red
  • Rate Cuts and Stock Returns
  • Characteristics of a Bull Market
  • Market Correction Reflection
  • Picking Individual Stocks is Hard
  • Tale of Two Markets
  • The Longest Drawdown in Recent History
  • Principled Investing
  • The Benchmark Fallacy
  • Markets After Major Geopolitical Events
  • Hot Themes and Future Returns
  • Can the Market Predict the Next President?
  • Estimating Future Equity Returns
  • Is There Such a Thing as “Safe” Stocks?
  • Bitcoin: Understanding the Digital Asset
  • Cash is Not a Long-term Investment
  • The Why in Diversify
  • Tis the Season for Wall Street Forecasting Pt. VII
  • This is Why We Invest: Long-Term View on Markets
  • Latte with Nik: If I Didn’t See It, I Wouldn’t Believe It
  • Wall Street is Bearish: That’s a Good Thing
  • The Fed Could be in the Bottom of the 9th
  • The Investor Mindset: Fixed vs. Growth
  • When Safe Assets Become Risky
  • Starting Yield and Future Bond Returns
  • Hot 2024 Presidential Election Talk
  • Past Performance and Investment Decisions
  • The Big Short’s, Big Short
  • The Plight of the Dividend Investor
  • Is the Market Detached from Reality?
  • The Loneliest Trade
  • Juicy Money Market Yields Won’t Last
  • When a Bear Becomes a Bull
  • Can AI Pick Investments?
  • Mega Cap Fueled Rally
  • How Much Cash is Too Much?
  • Falling Inflation and Stock Returns
  • The U.S. Debt Ceiling
  • Market Expectations are Everything
  • The Demise of King Dollar
  • Back to Back Calendar Year Losses for Stocks
  • The Market is Quietly Stacking Up Wins
  • Bond Returns Following Difficult Years
  • Not a Typical Bank Failure
  • The Biggest Heist No One is Talking About
  • Assets That Could Hold Up During a Recession
  • Six Investing Lessons from 2022
  • U.S. Debt Ceiling Fiasco: Big Risk or Big Nothing?
  • The Perception of Risk
  • Investment Themes by Decade
  • Santa Claus Rally, Fact or Fiction?
  • Tis the Season for Wall Street Forecasting Pt. VI
  • Top 5 Pure Portfolios’ Blogs: Turkey Edition
  • Avoiding the Extremes
  • Mid-Terms and Markets
  • When the Fed Pivots
  • Silver Linings in a Dismal Year
  • Surprised by Surprises
  • Year of the 180
  • The Market Could Be Wrong About Inflation
  • Fighting the Urge to Throw in the Towel
  • Where to Find Investment Income
  • Intra-Year Market Declines
  • Calling Market Inflection Points
  • Signs of a Market Bottom
  • Which Asset Class Has it Right?
  • Recession Obsession
  • Bear Market Blues, How Much Worse Can it Get?
  • Sniffing Around for Investment Opportunities
  • Investment Royalty to Punching Bag
  • Fighting the Market-Timing Urge
  • Market Sell-Off: The Good & Bad
  • Sell in May and Enjoy the Day?
  • What Does Peak Inflation Look Like?
  • Does it Still Make Sense to Own Bonds?
  • What’s the Bullish Case for Stocks?
  • What Are the Odds of a U.S. Recession?
  • Checking Up on Pandemic Darlings
  • How to Solve the Inflation Problem
  • Waiting for the “All-Clear” Investment Signal
  • How High Can Bond Yields Go?
  • What Goes Up, Must Come Down
  • Throw Away the Old Playbook
  • Managing Market Volatility
  • How Does this Bull Market Stack Up?
  • Pure Portfolios’ Best of 2021
  • Tis the Season for Wall Street Forecasting Pt. V
  • Sniffing All-Time Highs and Nobody is Happy
  • What is the Right Stock Allocation for Retirees?
  • Not All Indexing is Good
  • Worried About Inflation? You Might Own These Assets
  • Is There Ever a Good Reason to Panic Sell?
  • Is Market Volatility Still Elevated?
  • Can Stocks Get Cheaper and Go Higher?
  • Why are ETFs Tax-Efficient?
  • An Investor’s Two Most Powerful Weapons
  • Why Trend Following Could Make Sense for Retirees
  • Taking Cues from the Market
  • Intoxicated with Pessimism
  • Avoiding Stupidity is Underrated
  • It’s Been Too Easy
  • Not So Obvious
  • Predicting Irrational Beasts
  • The Difference Between Amateur and Professional Investors
  • What the Treasury Market is Saying About Inflation
  • Shrinking Life Cycle of an S&P 500 Company
  • The Best Predictor of Stock Returns is Amazingly Simple
  • Higher Capital Gains Tax and Stock Returns
  • No Such Thing as Passive Investing
  • Spectacular Implosion
  • The Identity Leak
  • Not Buying What the Fed is Selling
  • The New Age Investor
  • Beating the Bubble Horse
  • Perspective on Rising Bond Yields
  • Bitcoin, What Of It?
  • Investing at All-Time Highs
  • Is Inflation Coming?
  • Is Your Portfolio Drunk or Sober?
  • The Blue Wave and Stock Returns
  • Getting a Fat Pitch and Not Swinging
  • Investing in a 0% World
  • Good from Far, but Far from Good
  • Scratching Your Degenerate Itch
  • Investing Cash in a Runaway Market
  • Does Your ESG Approach Pass the Smell Test?
  • Municipal Magic
  • The Plight of an All-Equity Investor
  • Bear Market Rally or Did We Hit Bottom?
  • Bear Market Assessment: What We Got Right & Wrong
  • Bear Market Blind Spots
  • What’s Your Process for Making Portfolio Changes?
  • Are Low Yields a Good Reason to Shun Bonds?
  • Random $#%&
  • The Amazing Run of U.S. Tech Stocks
  • Do You Have an Information Filter?
  • Want Dividend Yield? Here’s Where to Look…
  • Pure Portfolios’ Best of 2019
  • Tis the Season for Wall Street Forecasting Pt. III
  • Did Investors Experience a Golden Decade?
  • It’s Time to Dump the Broken Risk Questionnaire
  • “I’ll Just Buy Amazon Stock”
  • Can High Dividend Stocks Replace Paltry Bond Income?
  • Are you Paying for Services NOT Rendered?
  • Is Anyone Bullish on the Stock Market?
  • Should you Act on Big Down Market Days?
  • Simple Doesn’t Sell
  • Is Your Wealth Manager Overweight Equities?
  • How Common are 5+% Pullbacks?
  • How I’m Personally Invested
  • The Most Interesting Charts in the World
  • The Unspoken Costs of a Doomsdayer
  • Should You Only Own U.S. Stocks?
  • Citywire Q&A with Nik Schuurmans
  • Does your Portfolio Make the Grade?
  • Stability Breeds Instability
  • Calling it off with 5-2 Offsuit
  • Mr. Bond and Mr. Market
  • What I’ve Learned Over My 15 Year Career
  • BBB Rated Movie
  • How to Punt Stacks of Cash to Uncle Sam
  • Let’s Talk Stock Buybacks
  • Trend is Your Friend, An Alternative to Buy & Hold
  • Mutual Fund Owners, Check Your 1099s
  • Weirdness without Parallel
  • The Best of Bogle
  • The Most Dangerous Thing II
  • 2018: No Place to Hide
  • Tis the Season for Wall St. Forecasting Pt. II
  • Is the Santa Claus Rally Real?
  • The Most Dangerous Thing
  • No Hunt for Red October
  • Being Told to “Stay the Course”
  • Back to Back Negative Return Years for Bonds
  • Stock Returns in Midterm Election Years
  • The Best Question You Could Ask
  • Investor Anxiety: Signs You’re Invested Incorrectly
  • Persistence of Performance
  • Fed Hikes and Bond Prosperity
  • U.S. and Everyone Else
  • Fees Tied to Performance is Gaining Momentum
  • Ignoring Good Advice
  • When it’s Broken, Don’t Fix it
  • The New S&P 500
  • Q2: Risk On?
  • Sucker Dividend Yields
  • “How Often Do You Look at My Portfolio?”
  • Cash is a Weapon
  • Loose Bubble Talk
  • Beware of the Lazy 60/40
  • Turning Safe Into Risky
  • Less Obvious Mistakes
  • Hedge Fund Hold Up
  • Sell in May and Go Away
  • Portfolio Audit
  • Q1 in Pics: The Dust Settles
  • My Advisor Doesn’t Charge Me a Fee
  • Decoding Your Brokerage Statement
  • Want More Yield On Cash?
  • Gems from Buffett’s 2017 Letter
  • Back to Normal
  • International Developed: What Do You Own?
  • Warm & Fuzzy Financial Services Ads
  • What’s Attractive in this Environment?
  • Over-Diversification
  • Why Clients Fire their Advisor
  • What Happens After a +25% Year?
  • What’s All This Volatility Talk?
  • Following the Herd: Short-Term Bonds
  • Tis the Season for Wall Street Forecasting
  • Delusional Return Expectations
  • Signs of a Market Top? Valuation
  • Meet the Story-Based Advisor
  • Naked Performance
  • Naked Performance
  • Signs of a Market Top? Investor Sentiment
  • Avoiding the Dividend Trap
  • Does a Robo-Advisor Make Sense for You?
  • Death of the Fixed 1% Fee
  • Risky Business of High Yield
  • When Times Are Bad Pt. 2
  • The Age-Based Portfolio
  • Should I Borrow Against my Portfolio?
  • Hedging Equities with… Equities?
  • Money Quotes
  • Fear Sells. Don’t Buy It.
  • The Bond Market Doesn’t Believe the Fed
  • Valuation Matters, Except When It Doesn’t
  • Drive Your Managed Portfolio into the Ground
  • The Rise of the Call Center Advisor
  • The Danger of Mixing Politics and Investing
  • The Allure of Gold
  • Exchange Traded Funds Are (Mostly) Good
  • What is Evidence-Based Investing?
  • Hard Ball Questions to Ask Your Advisor
  • Don’t Underperform Yourself
  • Pure Q1 Recap in Pics (and a few words)
  • Mismanaged Bond Portfolios Are Costly
  • Does Dollar Cost Averaging Work?
  • What Are You Paying for Wealth Management?
  • Google “Bond Bubble” For a Laugh
  • Pessimism Reigns Supreme
  • Simple Beats Complex
  • Bob Farrell’s 10 Rules of Investing
  • The Future of Wealth Management
  • Mutual Funds are Toxic for Building Wealth
• Category: Market Commentary
  • Pure Portfolios’ April 2025 Market Commentary
  • Pure Portfolios’ March 2025 Market Commentary
  • Pure Portfolios’ February 2025 Market Commentary
  • Pure Portfolios’ January 2025 Market Commentary
  • Pure Portfolios’ December 2024 Market Commentary
  • Pure Portfolios’ November 2024 Market Commentary
  • Pure Portfolios’ October 2024 Market Commentary
  • Pure Portfolios’ September 2024 Market Commentary
  • Pure Portfolios’ August 2024 Market Commentary
  • Pure Portfolios’ July 2024 Market Commentary
  • Pure Portfolios’ June 2024 Market Commentary
  • Pure Portfolios’ May 2024 Market Commentary
  • Pure Portfolios’ April 2024 Market Commentary
  • Pure Portfolios’ March 2024 Market Commentary
  • Pure Portfolios’ February 2024 Market Commentary
  • Pure Portfolios’ January 2024 Market Commentary
  • December 2023 Market Commentary
  • November 2023 Market Commentary
  • October 2023 Market Commentary
  • September 2023 Market Commentary
  • August 2023 Market Commentary
  • July 2023 Market Commentary
  • June 2023 Market Commentary
  • May 2023 Market Commentary
  • April 2023 Market Commentary
  • March 2023 Market Commentary
  • February 2023 Market Commentary
  • January 2023 Market Commentary
  • December 2022 Market Commentary
  • November 2022 Market Commentary
  • October 2022 Market Commentary
  • September 2022 Market Commentary
  • August 2022 Video Commentary
  • July 2022 Market Commentary
  • June 2022 Market Commentary
  • May 2022 Market Commentary
  • April 2022 Market Commentary
  • March 2022 Market Commentary
  • February 2022 Market Commentary
• Category: Planning
  • 4576 Weeks to Live
  • Is Your Retirement Plan Ready for Market Volatility?
  • 5 Tasks to Add to Your Spring Cleaning List
  • The Best Age to Start Social Security
  • Estate Planning 101: Should You Choose a Will or a Living Trust?
  • Probable Probabilities
  • To Convert or Not Convert? Roth is the Question
  • Understanding Safe Withdrawal Rates
  • Rush to Riches
  • The Most Valuable Financial Advisor Task
  • How High Interest Rates Impact Financial Decisions
  • How to Create a Realistic Budget
  • Pure Portfolios’ 2023 Client Letter
  • Pure Portfolios’ 2023 Reading List
  • The Biggest Risk to Retirees Revisited
  • Mitigating Damage without Playing the Market Oracle
  • Pure Portfolios’ 2022 Client Letter
  • Pure Portfolios’ 2021 Client Letter
  • How to Reduce Capital Gains in your Portfolio
  • When Was the Last Time you Changed your Mind?
  • Is a Roth Conversion Right for You?
  • The Untold Story of Pure Portfolios
  • Internal vs. External Focus
  • The Biggest Risk to New Retirees
  • Mitigating Damage without Placing a Trade
  • What’s Your Silver Lining?
  • What Does the SECURE Act Mean for You?
  • Pure Portfolios 2020 Client Letter
  • Portfolio Lay-Ups for Year-End
  • What’s Your Different Kind of Wealth?
  • What is the Impact of Retiring in a High-Income Tax State?
  • Fool Me Once, Fool Me A Billion Times
  • Fee Schedule Trickery
  • Better Decisions with Sound Financial Planning
  • Millennial Advice from a Millennial
  • Do You Need a Trust?
  • The One-Page Challenge
  • Ultimate Transparency
  • Take the Low-Hanging Fruit
  • Planning for the Ugly
  • Is Your Asset Location Costing You?
  • Unwinding a Variable Annuity
  • 8 Signs Your Family Will Fight Over Your Estate
  • Pure Portfolios 2017 Client Letter
  • Introducing Everplans
  • Should I Consolidate My Assets?
  • Advantages of Working with Independent Firms
  • Why Your Financial Advisor Hates the Fiduciary Standard
• Category: Retirement
  • What Should Retirees Pay Attention To?
  • Why Not Go All-In on the S&P 500?
  • The Retirement Propaganda War
  • Hey Retirees, the 4% Rule is Back
  • Retirees: More is the Enemy of Enough
  • Pure Portfolios’ 2022 Reading List
  • Retirement Simplicity is Beautiful
  • Is the 4% Rule Dead?
  • Monte Carlo Analysis: Worthless or Worthwhile?
  • What is Your “Enough?”
  • How to Tell if your 401(k) Plan is Hot Garbage
  • Should I Just Buy the S&P 500 in Retirement?
  • All-Time High Retirement
  • Solving the Social Security Equation

Podcast

• The Silent Killer of Retirement Plans
• How much do you need to retire in 2023?
• Investing Hot Takes
• Are You a Doom-Scroller?
• The Cost of Doing Nothing...
• Bull vs. Bear Part 2.