In case you are searching frantically in your email spam folder for my previous emails from the last 5 weeks – don’t worry! Nothing is wrong with your inbox, I have indeed skipped them 😱.
My wife and I have been battling COVID infection, hidden away in our cabin to make sure we don’t spread the disease to our neighbors. We are perfectly healthy now – I have even returned to my workout regimen, but the whole ordeal was not fun.
I wouldn’t normally keep you updated about my health, but watch out. We took great care to not contract the virus and despite being in very good shape – the symptoms were not that mild. I know, that you probably have heard enough coverage of both COVID and US Elections to last you for decades, so I’ll keep my takeaways brief:
- I had very little fever and consider measuring temperature in public places a joke,
- Loss of taste and smell was complete for both my wife and I,
- The rest of the sympthoms were flu-like, but I was exhausted for 2 weeks,
- The “brain fog” took longer to subside, resulting with you lacking the comforting embrace of my newsletter
- I took 10 000 IU of Vitamin D for a week and I think it helped. This is not considered a safe dose, please don’t change your mind on my word alone, but read up
- This is all serious. Stay safe, wear a mask.
Investment Basics
Like any normal person struck with an infectious disease, I started reviewing my investments. I considered my strategy pretty solid, but I discovered that due to a law quirk, the tax rate on the dywidends from S&P500 ETF that I own may be 30% instead of 0.
The most infuriating aspect of it all is that this is one of 7 ETFs we have available on the Warsaw Stock Exchange, it took me 3 days of research and I still don’t have an answer!
I consider financial literacy a topic much more important than the crap (putting it mildly) we learn about past battles at school. After oh-god-how-many years of public education, I have to dig and scramble to understand the foundational pieces of how this capitalist country works.
I decided to start collecting the missing “Deliberate Lessons From Dad” so I can pass them on to my future children. If I can start them investing in ETFs by the age of 5, they will be unstoppable!
On to the lessons!
Here is my best advice about investing
- Choose Index Funds or ETFs with low fees that are automatically managed. Low fees will accelerate your returns and automatic management will remove human error out of the loop. Right now the best funds are SP500 from Black Rock or Vanguard. Holding an index will give you returns as the economy grows. No worse and no better.
- Compliment with Government Bonds and Gold (Physical)
- Dollar-Cost Average your entire portfolio
- Put your Dividend – Yielding stock in your tax-protected retirement accounts. That way, the compound interest from the dividend will be tax-free, and it will compound faster.
- Rebalance often and mercilessly. If you have a target of 60% stocks in your account – if their price falls, you will buy more to adjust your wallet %. When they rise again, you will sell some and convert to bonds. With rebalancing, the market roller coaster works in your favor!
Read the in-depth tutorial on Piszek.com
Surprising consequences of the Internet
Mars is a Free Planet
Starlink Terms of Service are already prepared to claim “Mars a free planet, that recognizes no authority from an Earth-Based government”.
Lucky Martians.