Financial Well-being

Large growth, which typically holds over 50% in technology , has entered into crash territory today with around 22% drop from it's peak from Dec last year. Broad market, such as Vanguard Total Stock index, is still in correction territory with just 13% drop from it's peak.  Market hates uncertainty . We have enough share of uncertainties lately, such as pandemic surge in China, geo political crisis in Europe caused by war in Ukraine, global food inflation and associated geo political crisis in developing nations, just to name few.   This makes Central Banks job even harder in taming inflation and hence increases potential for global stagflation . It's natural in such scenario to have investor emotions of cutting losses by resorting to panic selling of stock equities, before it drops even further. However, savvy investing is all about managing emotion of such pain of loss . Long-term stock investing's contribution to our financial well-being depends a lot on how...

"When it comes to savings, paying for college and home-buying , most say young adults today have it harder than their parents’ generation" Source: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/02/28/most-in-the-u-s-say-young-adults-today-face-more-challenges-than-their-parents-generation-in-some-key-areas/ft_22-02-25_youngadults_01/ My advice to millennials in this group is to consider starting early  in investing as one of the best coping techniques for above lack of savings  challenge they are having. This might require some hard choices when it comes to discretionary  splurges, such as destination  bachelorette/birthdays/weddings, which seems to be extraordinarily higher for this generation than their parents. This takes a big slice away from some of mandatory savings one can start early well rounded financial well-being.

Congratulations to all those savvy investors who paid attention to valuable advices  by some of us and acted timely  to lock in one of the best mortgage rates in history. Some of us managed our short term greed  well and paid little bit extra in mortgage rate so as to stretch  our mortgage to longer 30 years  term as opposed to otherwise cheaper 15 years term. Our portfolio is likely to benefit through increased investing in stock equities (as opposed to slow growing home equity) in subsequent long 30 years  through magic of compounding. In counter intuitive way, perhaps some of us have been accelerating  mortgage payment with no regard to such low interest rate  opportunities. Such behavior could be correlated to so-called debt aversion  (or perhaps inability to manage pain of occasional losses during investing in stock equities). Unfortunately, such behavior is likely to cost quite a bit to their long term financial well-being. Savvy inve...