Recency Bias Investing: Why “What’s Working Now” Is the Worst Signal You Can Follow
Between January 2016 and December 2025, U.S. mutual funds and ETFs returned 9.9% a year. The average dollar actually invested in those same funds earned…
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401k Rollover Options When You Change Jobs: The Four Choices, Compared
In a peer-reviewed study of 162,360 employees leaving 28 different retirement plans, 41.4% cashed out their 401(k) at job separation — and most of them…
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ETF vs Mutual Fund Taxes: The Myth That Quietly Costs Taxable Investors Hundreds a Year
In 2025, roughly 72% of US equity mutual funds handed their shareholders a capital gains distribution, with average payouts running 7% to 10% of net…
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Sequence of Returns Risk: The Formula That Shows What a Bad First Year Really Costs
Two people retire with the exact same $1,000,000 portfolio and earn the exact same 7.9% annualized return over 25 years. One ends with $4.5 million….
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Dollar Cost Averaging vs Lump Sum Investing: What 46 Years of Data Actually Show
Vanguard ran the numbers across 46 years of global market data and found that investing a windfall all at once beat spreading it over three…
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Confirmation Bias Investing: Why More Research Makes You More Certain and Less Right
Over the ten years ending December 2024, the average dollar invested in U.S. mutual funds and ETFs earned 7.0% a year while the funds themselves…
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Overconfidence Bias Stock Picking: Why Doing Your Own Research Makes It Worse
Between 1991 and 1996, the households that traded most actively in their brokerage accounts earned 11.4% a year. The market returned 17.9% over the same…
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Expense Ratio Impact Over 30 Years: Why “It’s Only 0.4%” Is the Most Expensive Myth in Investing
Two funds hold nearly identical baskets of U.S. stocks. One charges 0.03% a year, the other 0.40%. On a $10,000 balance that difference is $37…
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Tax Loss Harvesting for Small Portfolios: Is It Worth It? (Run the Math First)
A $12,000 index fund position sitting 8% underwater generates a $960 realized loss. At a 22% marginal rate, selling it and buying a near-identical fund…
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Asset Location vs Asset Allocation: Why the “Bonds in Your 401(k)” Rule Barely Matters for Most Portfolios (2026)
Vanguard’s own research puts the value of optimal asset location at up to 0.60% a year. It puts the value of your strategic asset allocation…
