Sound Investing

Please take advantage of our free offer at the end of these podcast notes. The granddaddy of all investment decisions is the choice between stocks and bonds. While most investors know stocks make more than bonds, few know that even a small investment — as little as $25 dollars a month — can easily lead to the source of a million dollars in retirement and money left to others. This podcast explores the likely long-term term returns of stocks and bond, both before and after retirement.  Although Paul doesn’t comment on all the tables, he thinks investors will find all of them interesting.  Paul especially hopes you will take a look at Tables 1, 2, 3, 4 in this pdf, as well as Table 46. Get your free copy of We’re Talking Millions! 12 Simple Ways to Supercharge Your Retirement. Please share it widely!

Ever wonder why it’s fairly easy to plan something and much more difficult to stick with it? Inspired by a brief post on Seth Godin’s blog, about “Lines and curves,” Paul discusses this phenomena that sidetracks many sincere investors. (See Godin’s post below). He makes the case that the work he and his team do is like a ruler's "straight line," while the “curves” are what you have to deal with in real life as a ‘stay-the-course’ investor. Lines and curves  Working with a ruler is pretty straightforward. Just about anyone can extend a line, or fix something straight if it breaks. It’s on the line or it’s not. But curves? Curves are complex and hard to get right. It turns out that humans bring curves with them, wherever we go. This podcast is part of the educational offerings from The Merriman Financial Education Foundation, a registered 501(c)3.  If you found value in this podcast, here are five ways to support the podcast and our foundation: 1)     Leave a podcast review on your player of choice. 2)    Sign up for our biweekly newsletter at PaulMerriman.com and receive a free pdf copy of We’re Talking Millions! 12 Ways to Supercharge Your Retirement. 3)    Use our M1 Finance affiliate link to set up a brokerage account and use our portfolio suggestions. If you fund your account with a minimum of $1,000, our foundation will receive a one-time affiliate fee — at no cost to you — which helps support our financial education projects. 4)    Buy our latest book, We’re Talking Millions! 12 Simple Ways To Supercharge Your Retirement available at Amazon and other online outlets. 5)   Consider making a tax-deductible donation to the Foundation to support our mission to provide financial education to investors at all stages of life.  Thank you!

In this podcast, Paul makes the case that all 12 ways presented in his book, We’re Talking Millions! 12 Simple Ways to Supercharge Your Retirement, are EACH worth a million dollars or more.   It’s not just that an investor would make a million dollars, but that in each decision, or fork in the road, one fork would make an EXTRA million dollars more than the less productive path. Many people find this incredible, and Paul admits that most young investors would be very happy to make a million or two in total. But when his co-author, Richard Buck, with whom he has successfully and happily worked  for almost 30 years, confessed he personally found it a bit far-fetched, Paul felt pushed to the wall.  “I had to throw down the gauntlet, draw a line in the sand and commit myself to making Rich — and all the young investors I hope to reach with this information — understand once and for all why I believe this so strongly,” says Paul. In this 90 minutes, Paul walks you through all 12 ways, or forks in the road, so you fully understand (and can explain to others) how and why each way is really a $1 million (or more) decision. He explains the importance that small differences in returns make over a lifetime of investing. This table, “One-half percent difference over a lifetime” makes that difference very clear. In addition to the 12 ways, or decisions, Paul adds FIVE BONUS WAYS that will likely add another million to your  or your children’s or grandchildren’s future. Tune in to learn the whole truth of how and why these 12 Ways to Supercharge Your Retirement can mean well over $12 million additional dollars in your pocket over a lifetime.  And yes, that could come with only $6,000 a year invested over 40 years.  Get your FREE pdf of We’re Talking Millions! 12 Simple Ways To Supercharge Your Retirement and share it with all the people you know and care about. And if you find Paul’s comments unrealistic, please let him know why. He would like to share your position and his response in a future podcast.  Of course he won’t use your name so fire away to info@paulmerriman.com

Paul, Tom and Don discuss the time frame over which investors should remain patient and how much return can reasonably be expected. They reference the article- “How Long is a Long Run?”, by Craig Israelsen.

The questions and topics in this podcast came out of the wonderful responses to the question posed to our free newsletter subscribers, "How we can keep you engaged?”Most of your studies offer returns over 30, 40, or more years.  For those of us who don’t have that kind of time, what can you tell us about the likely returns we should get?   In Paul’s response he references a terrific new article and study by Craig Israelsen, one of our Truth-Tellers.  His article, “How Long is a Long Run?”, offers the likely success of getting the historical returns for the next 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30 and 35 years.  Spoiler alert:  There’s good news and bad!  2:00 You and Larry Swedroe have convinced me to add small cap value to my portfolio.  Many retirement plans offer actively-managed small cap value funds with high expenses.  Do you have a hard cut-off on what level of expense is acceptable? 22:40 In your popular video, My Favorite 12 Vanguard Funds for Retirees, you recommend several actively-managed funds, including Wellington.  How can you recommend Wellington (VWLEX) when Vanguard offers Balanced Index Fund (VBIAX) with about the same balance of stocks and bonds?  28:05 You recommend a combination of short-term government bond fund, an intermediate bond fund and a TIPS fund for the bond portion of your portfolios.  Why not keep it simpler and just combine a total bond market fund like BND with a TIPS fund? 31:30 What advice or evidence can you offer to help investors who have started saving late in their career and are in danger of taking too much risk in an attempt to catch up? 35:20 I am 80 years old and never invested in the stock market.  I have used only CDs to build my retirement savings.  I now believe I need to add some equities to my portfolio.  What do you recommend I do to conservatively add equities and still sleep easy?  59:28 There are several links mentioned:  bankrate.com, stantheannuityman.com, and for this man’s children and grandchildren.  Download Paul's free books.

Warning: this podcast is geared for investors who like numbers.  It is focused on some of the best lessons from Paul's favorite book on investing. The Matrix Book 2021 is 100 pages (8 1/2 x 14) almost entirely dedicated to listing the annual returns of dozens of asset class, some from 1926 to 2020 and others starting where records of those asset classes were first tracked.  Those asset classes include U.S. and international large cap blend, large cap value, small cap blend, small cap value, commodities, short and long term U.S. and international corporate and government bonds and inflation. In most cases returns are listed for 1, 5, 10, 15, 20, 50 and 80 years. Topics: 1. How do the S&P 500 and Total Market Stock Indexes compare? 3:20 2. How have small cap blend (growth and value) and small cap value performed? 8:33 3. Not all indexes are the same.  How do the Russell and DFA index construction and returns differ? 11:00 4. Have recent small cap and value return premiums been as good as the past? 17:00 5. How have international asset performed? 19:56 6. How have emerging market performed? 22:00 7. How have bonds performed for the past 20 and 80 years? 23:35 8. How has inflation impacted returns over the past 20, 50 and 80 years? 25:30 9. Are commodities a good hedge against inflation? 27:52 10. What is the best investment to protect against inflation? 30:40 11. Which return is the most meaningful, before or after inflation? 33:17 12. What are the most important lessons from The Matrix Book 2021? 42:13 This podcast is part of the educational offerings from The Merriman Financial Education Foundation, a registered 501(c)3.  If you found value in this podcast, here are five ways to support the podcast and our foundation: 1)     Leave a podcast review on your player of choice. 2)    Sign up for our biweekly newsletter at PaulMerriman.com and receive a free pdf copy of We’re Talking Millions! 12 Ways to Supercharge Your Retirement. 3)    Use our M1 Finance affiliate link to set up a brokerage account and use our portfolio suggestions. If you fund your account with a minimum of $1,000, our foundation will receive a one-time affiliate fee — at no cost to you — which helps support our financial education projects. 4)    Buy our latest book, We’re Talking Millions! 12 Simple Ways To Supercharge Your Retirement available at Amazon and other online outlets. 5)   Consider making a tax-deductible donation to the Foundation to support our mission to provide financial education to investors at all stages of life.  Thank you!

In this episode of "Talking Real Money/Sound Investing,” Paul Merriman, Tom Cock and Don McDonald each bring a “common investor myth” that the three discuss. Paul’s myth: “We don’t believe in market timing.’" Tom’s myth: Rebalancing means beating the market and makes you more money. Don’s myth: "I’m entitled to a high rate of return on my investment." The conversation on myths starts at 1:35. Get for FREE: We’re Talking Millions! 12 Simple Ways to Supercharge Your Retirement by Paul Merriman and Richard Buck at paul merriman.com/signup Get for FREE: Financial Fysics: How Money and Investing Really Work by Don McDonald at talkingrealmoney.com/free Tom and Don at Vestory.com offer free help to all investors with no sales pitch, no obligation. This podcast is also available as a YouTube Video at- https://youtu.be/1Lzhkuk9QEQ

Paul takes you “behind-the-scenes” to the work he and his foundation have been doing this year along with what is upcoming, including Chris Pedersen’s new 2 Funds For Life book, Daryl Bahl’s new tables and an exciting calculator in development to construct your own situation using our tables of historical data. And he addresses some frequently asked questions from young, mid-career and retired investors. Topics and Q&A include: · Our surprising most-popular video · Expectations for the ETF project by Chris Pedersen · Buying 10 years of retirement $3,650 · Lump sum vs. dollar cost averaging · Lifetime investment strategies · Dreaming of winning the lottery · How to determine your glide path · Target date fund considerations Suggested reading: 101 Investment Decisions Guaranteed to Change Your Financial Future.) This podcast is part of the educational offerings from The Merriman Financial Education Foundation, a registered 501(c)3. If you found value in this podcast, here are five ways to support the podcast and our foundation: 1)  Leave a podcast review on your player of choice. 2)  Sign up for our biweekly newsletter at PaulMerriman.com and receive a free pdf copy of We’re Talking Millions! 12 Ways to Supercharge Your Retirement. 3) Use our M1 Finance affiliate link to set up a brokerage account and use our portfolio suggestions. If you fund your account with a minimum of $1,000, our foundation will receive a one-time affiliate fee — at no cost to you — which helps support our financial education projects. 4) Buy our latest book, We’re Talking Millions! 12 Simple Ways To Supercharge Your Retirement available at Amazon and other online outlets. 5) Consider making a tax-deductible donation to the Foundation to support our mission to provide financial education to investors at all stages of life. Thank you!

Today, on our joint Talking Real Money/Sound Investing podcast, Don and Paul Merriman discuss index funds and why they are the only way to build a decent portfolio. It's almost impossible to beat the market, so just be the market. Paul and Don show you: The best indexes to own based on science. Keeping costs low. The differences between funds and ETFs. How to maintain your long-term discipline. Visit Paul at paulmerriman.com

Welcome to another joint Talking Real Money/Sound Investing podcast. Today, Don, Paul, and Tom update you on the latest cryptocurrency news. Plus, with more than 10,000 mutual funds and ETFs available in the US, how do you choose the best ones for your portfolio?