Investing

Late majority in marketing

Dave Farquhar Investing
Late majority in marketing

The late majority is an important concept in marketing and business. This is the phase when an idea goes completely mainstream. If it’s your idea, this is the phase when you’ve made it. If you’re competing against this idea, you’d better be ready to be counter culture. I’ll provide you the definition, and some examples from somewhat recent history.

Read more

Early majority in marketing

Dave Farquhar Investing
Early majority in marketing

The early majority is an important concept in marketing and business. I’ll provide you the definition, an example and how to recognize it, and what comes after it. I’ll also share a cautionary tale of why not recognizing an early majority can be a costly mistake.

Read more

What is dollar cost averaging?

Dave Farquhar Investing
What is dollar cost averaging?

What is dollar cost averaging? Think of it as a way to spread out risk when investing in stocks, bonds, or other equities. It keeps you from paying too much at any given time.

The way you make money in investments is by buying low and selling high, but you never know what the high and low points of the market will be. Dollar cost averaging helps you to avoid the highs.

Read more

Am I saving enough for retirement? Are you?

Dave Farquhar Investing
Am I saving enough for retirement? Are you?

Am I saving enough for retirement? What about you? It’s not necessarily an easy question to answer off the top of your head. The answer is, most people aren’t. Here’s what you can do about it.

The average person doesn’t have enough saved for retirement. Increasing 401(K) or other IRA contributions is the best way to fix that, and the maximum contribution may be higher than you think.

Read more

Are stocks safe to invest in?

Dave Farquhar Investing
Are stocks safe to invest in?

Are stocks safe to invest in? All the disclaimers that you see at the bottom of stockbroker web pages sure makes it sound like they’re not. But the alternatives aren’t necessarily completely safe either. Here’s how to understand how stocks work, and whether you should put your money in them, or elsewhere.

Fear of stocks generally comes from not understanding what they are or how they work. There are ways to make them safe, and with reasonable precautions, their higher yield makes them safer in some ways than traditional “safe” investments.

Read more

Should I roll over my 401(K)?

Dave Farquhar Investing
Should I roll over my 401(K)?

Should I roll over my 401(K)? Good question. While there may be reason not to do so, in most cases, you would be better off if you did. Here’s how to decide if you should, and where you should roll it over to.

Rolling over your 401(K) helps you keep all your retirement money in one place and can offer you additional control. In some cases, it also saves you money.

Read more

401(K) asset allocation

Dave Farquhar Investing, Saving money
401(K) asset allocation

When you’re enrolling in your employer’s 401(K) plan, one of the most difficult questions is your 401(K) asset allocation. They’re limited in what advice they can give you, so I’ll share what’s worked for me.

The key to 401(K) asset allocation is to get a good mix of stocks of large companies, medium-sized companies, growth stocks, international stocks, and bonds. This helps you to do well over the long term, even when the market has bad years.

Read more

We buy houses for cash. What does that even mean?

Dave Farquhar Investing, Saving money
We buy houses for cash. What does that even mean?

I’m sure you’ve seen the signs attached to telephone poles. They say “We buy houses for cash,” stapled to a telephone pole or maybe stuck into the ground. They include a phone number and maybe a promise of a cash advance or a quick closing. You may have even received a post card in the mail offering to buy your house for cash. Who are these people, and should you consider selling to them?

If you’re not interested in selling and aren’t already working with a realtor, you have every reason to ignore those signs and postcards. If working with a realtor isn’t an option for you and you do need to sell your house or risk losing it, going the cash route may be an option for you.

Read more

How do you make money when stock goes down?

Dave Farquhar Investing
How do you make money when stock goes down?

How do you make money when stock goes down? Counter-intuitively, it’s easier. When the stock market takes a downturn, like it did in 2008, or in late 2018/early 2019, it’s actually an opportunity. Let’s talk about what to do when the stock market falls.

Generally speaking, there are three ways to make money on stocks. The first way is on appreciation, or the increase in value of the stock itself. The second way is through dividends. The stock market going down makes it easier to make money on both of these things. Your money buys more stock, which gives you more shares to recover value. And the more shares you own, the more dividends you receive. And the third is through your employer match, if you receive one.

Read more

Will baseball cards ever be valuable again?

Dave Farquhar Baseball, Investing
Will baseball cards ever be valuable again?

“Will baseball cards ever be valuable again?” someone asked me recently. The answer is that it depends. Not all cards were valuable in the first place.

Part of the problem is there was a time when 90% of boys collected cards. Now they don’t. Prices dropped due to simple supply and demand.

Read more