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Frequently “Oaked” Questions: The “AI Bubble”

October 31, 2025You Asked, So We’ll Answer   FOQ: So why is everyone talking about an “AI Bubble”? Short: AI stocks have been going crazy Long: AI, or Artificial Intelligence, has captured the imagination of the world. What can it do? How will life change? Will the robots take over and kill us all? If the last one happens, it’s on us. Hollywood has given us plenty of warning: Anywho, one would think there’s money to be made here, and the stock market is just the place (untrue, but the masses won’t hear it!). So in the last few years, AI stocks ... Read More

Extra! Extra! Read All About It! Actually, Don’t.

June 4, 2025You find a million bucks buried in your backyard on New Year’s Eve. But you’re lucky – you don’t really need it. So you think “I’ll invest it”. And you do, on January 1st, 2025 – all in stocks. From that day until today, you don’t check your account, but you do check the news periodically. Here’s what you’ve seen: And just yesterday: After all that, how do you think that million is doing? Can’t be good. Probably horrible. 2008 all over again. You’re nervous. You’ve been nervous. Should you do something now? You bet everyone else already has. Will ... Read More

Frequently “Oaked” Questions: The Tariff Drop

April 8, 2025You Asked, So We’ll Answer   FOQ: This tariff drop – is it different this time? Short: Nope Long: The market drops for many different reasons. But most importantly, it ALWAYS drops:   Nothing new here. The takeaway is that after every single big drop, the market has hit a new high. Every single time. So when you say “It’s different this time”, know that it’s not the reason that matters. It’s the outcome. And the outcome has never been different. We recovered and went on to new highs.   FOQ: Why does it hurt? Short: Biology Long: As the ... Read More

How to Process Market Drops

March 11, 2025Behold the effect of time on markets: Allow us to explain. You’re looking at the best and worst returns of stocks (blue), bonds (green) and a mix of 60% stocks to 40% bonds (orange), over four different time frames. One-year returns are straightforward. For the 5-year returns, “rolling” means from 1973 to 1977, from 1974 to 1978, from 1975 to 1979, and so on. Same for ten and twenty years. The returns are annualized. For example, the best 10-year return for bonds was 13.6% per year. The worst was 0.9% per year. Let’s focus on the stock returns in blue, ... Read More