It has been more than six months since the pandemic started affecting the global economy. Many dividend paying businesses were impacted too. In response, some stopped or cut dividends. But not many businesses that I own have gone that route. I wrote a blog post in May this year … [Read more...] about Dividends, six months later
Complete List of Blog Posts
A bear market in rear view
About a year ago, I wrote a blog post wishing that all long-term investors get at least one bear market in their investing journeys. In that post, I made the case that a bear market is a blessing in disguise, rather than a curse, for all patient investors. Here we are one year … [Read more...] about A bear market in rear view
More founder run businesses
Bessemer Venture Partners is a well-known venture capital firm—also one of the nation’s oldest in VC business. As the name implies, it invests in young startups, mostly technology related businesses. Over the years, it had invested in some promising businesses that grew to be … [Read more...] about More founder run businesses
The odds of making money in stocks
Whether we like it or not, we investors are always making bets. We invest our capital with the expectation that down the road we will be able to recover all of it plus some. But since the future is unknowable, we implicitly make a bet every time we invest. Specifically, … [Read more...] about The odds of making money in stocks
Three years of dry powder deployments
Last month, the S&P 500 Price index reached its previous high, making up for all the losses incurred in this bear market. That was my automatic trigger to sell some stocks and recoup dry powder cash. It turned out to be an unusually quick turn-around for a decline as steep as … [Read more...] about Three years of dry powder deployments
Buy businesses that are recession proof
In June this year, the NBER (National Bureau of Economic Research) announced that U.S. had entered an economic recession beginning in February. This recession came after the longest economic expansion in the US history—from June 2009 through February 2020—of about 128 months in … [Read more...] about Buy businesses that are recession proof
A look back at BREIT performance
Two years ago, I did a blog post on Blackstone’s real estate investment trust called BREIT. It had just opened its doors to retail individual investors like me. At the time, I was looking to increase my investments in commercial real estate (CRE) assets and thought that it was a … [Read more...] about A look back at BREIT performance
A guide for young investor
I am in my fifties and I have been saving and investing since I began working full time more than twenty-five years ago. I have been writing about my investing in these pages for about three years. If you are in your 20s or 30s, perhaps you just started earning enough to save … [Read more...] about A guide for young investor
Breaking out to a new high
On June 9th, as the stock market came within 5% of its previous record high, my portfolio reached a new all-time high. That day, my portfolio nudged just above its prior record high made on February 19. Credit for this outperformance (since the broader stock market has yet to … [Read more...] about Breaking out to a new high
Risk-return analysis of my hedged stock positions
I have written about my dry powder investing several times before. I am not going to rehash all that stuff here. [You can check out all my previous Dry Powder related posts here.] Instead, in this post I will just focus on performance of my hedged stock positions where I keep … [Read more...] about Risk-return analysis of my hedged stock positions