Ben Carlson says You Probably Need Less Money Than You Think for Retirement .  His “favorite research on this topic comes from an Employee Benefit Research Institute study in 2018 that analyzed the spending habits of retirees during their first two decades of retirement.”  Unfortunately, this study’s results aren’t what they appear to be. The study results Here are the main conclusions from this study: Individuals with less than $200,000 in non-housing assets immediately before retirement had spent down (at the median) about one-quarter of their assets. Those with between $200,000 and $500,000 immediately before retirement had spent down 27.2 percent. Retirees with at least $500,000 immediately before retirement had spent down only 11.8 percent within the first 20 years of retirement at the median. About one-third of all sampled retirees had increased their assets over the first 18 years of retirement. The natural conclusion from these results is that retirees aren’t spending...

We’ve heard for some time now that China’s rise as an economic superpower is inevitable, and that China will surely surpass the U.S.  Extrapolating from the past few decades, this appears certain.  However, changes made by China’s current leader, Xi Jinping, have cast doubt on China’s ascendancy.  Chun Han Wong has covered China for the Wall Street Journal since 2014 and has written the book Party of One: The Rise of Xi Jinping and China’s Superpower Future .  His descriptions of the massive changes Xi is making lead me to believe that China’s growth will at least slow, if not falter altogether. My take on China is hardly original, and does not come from a deep understanding of China.  It comes down to the simple observation that for a society to become wealthier over the long term, its most brilliant and driven citizens must have the freedom to innovate.  We can’t know in advance which citizens will make a big impact, so this freedom must be available to ...

There are many mistakes we can make when investing in mutual funds or exchange-traded funds.  Joe Wiggins discusses these mistakes from a unique perspective in his book The Intelligent Fund Investor .  He covers some familiar territory, but in a way that is different from what I’ve seen before.  Although most of the examples in the book are from the UK, the points of discussion are relevant to investors from anywhere. Each of the first nine chapters cover one topic area where fund investors often make poor choices.  Here I will discuss some of the points that stood out to me. “Don’t invest in star fund managers.”  There are many reasons to avoid star fund managers, but I never thought of lack of oversight by the fund company being one of them.  “Individuals working in risk and compliance have little hope of exerting any control – they are likely to be relatively junior and considered expendable.  If they go into battle against a star fund manager, ther...