Recent Articles from James Osborne
Behavioral finance: The latest craze
If the masses are irrational, emotional fools, can they be exploited? If greedy investors are bidding up the market to insane levels and fearful investors are dumping high quality stocks at bargain-basement prices, surely there is an opportunity for the patient, rational, long-term investor to tak...
The folly of financial inflexibility
In early 2009, the financial press was dumping praise on any mutual fund manager who had evaded a bulk of the stock market decline. These managers were lauded as heroes, visionaries with the keen insight to see that the worst market and economic environment for 80 years had been just around the c...
The secret to financial freedom
In my relatively young career, I've had the privilege of working with a great many clients from all walks of life. School teachers and successful entrepreneurs, young married couples and retired engineers, doctors, dentists, lawyers and accountants. How all of these people reached (or are reaching...
Five reasons you’re not Warren Buffett
Buffett is legendary. Whether it is the result of skill, luck or leverage is a matter of debate. But the fact of the matter is you aren't Warren Buffett, your opportunities aren't Warren Buffett's, your goals aren't Warren Buffett's and your results don't need to be Warren Buffett's. What you ne...
Managing great expectations
We should be aware that "over the long term" doesn't mean "always" in advance so that we aren't surprised when we experience the opposite result of our long-term beliefs. Knowing that we will go through these periods will help us to not give up the ship when our long-term strategy "isn't working."...
Nobel Prize-winning investments?
I'd say it is safe to assume that a portfolio valued at $450 million has access to some pretty good resources, hopefully world-class investment consultants and institutional level asset managers. Maybe they would even take input from some Nobel Prize winners? Reports are that the Nobel Foundation...
In finance, even the winners can lose
The fact of the matter is, you can get everything right about what you expect to happen with the global economy, profit margins, valuations, taxes, foreign policy, exchange rates, unemployment, real estate value, interest rates, Fed policy, fiscal policy and the weather and still get the investmen...
Five great financial tips for 2014
Eliminate as many possible sources of market noise as possible. Got a great tip from CNBC last year? Turn it off. Your newsletter subscription says hyper-inflation is just around the corner? Cancel it. Your golf buddy is telling you about the great hedge fund he got in on? Change the subject....
Five great financial tips for 30-somethings
Call it your emergency fund, your sleep-well-at-night money or your safety net, but you need it. At a bare minimum it should be over $10,000, and realistically it should be four to six months’ salary. (If you are self-employed, a contractor or otherwise have irregular income, you may consider bum...
Four keys to early retirement
Early retirees are among those who stand to benefit most from the rollout of the Affordable Care Act. Unless one was offered retiree health care (which is quickly going the way of the dodo) or had a working spouse with health benefits, an early retiree could easily be turned down for a private in...
A financial year-end to-do list
Any minute, it will be Halloween, then Thanksgiving, and then the rest of the holiday season will come and go. Suddenly, it’s 2014. Before the year runs out, investors would be wise to consider planning opportunities available to them in areas of charitable giving, deduction planning and tax loss...
Do inflation-hedged investments deliver?
Inflation-hedged investments are all the rage. Since the commodities boom of the mid 2000′s and politically-driven town criers screaming of Fed-induced hyperinflation, investors and their advisors have scrambled to build portfolios with an eye on “inflation hedged” investments. This has meant a scramble for commodity investments and Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities, among others, i[...]