We’re in the home stretch!  

I’ve never been so excited to sprint away from such a turbulent year and into the holiday season. Along with many other people I’ve talked to, this year has pushed the limits on my ability to manage the sheer volume of media and news, just trying to make sense of it all.  

Stepping back and thinking about some of the higher level shifts we’re seeing has been one of the ways I’ve tried to connect the dots. Here are a handful of current and past articles which have helped me keep sight of the really high-level things that we’ve been witnessing at ground level:

• Way up high, Ben Thompson’s Aggregation Theory has helped me frame the disruption we’re witnessing in just about every aspect of our lives. 
• In Successful Aging, Canadian Author Daniel J. Levitin invites you to rethink retirement.
• This tweet from Ritholtz Wealth Management is the most concise investment plan out there. 

Reminders on markets

Here’s a great list of articles to help keep track of the market:

• Staying on track with your investments means creating an investment policy that you stick to. Here’s how you create one.
• Frances Donald charts a framework for our economy in The ABC’s of Economic Recovery.
• Scott Galloway discusses how to provide a sick parent with a good death.
• Why incentives matter from the Reformed Broker.
• A wonderful chart comparing Presidential Terms and Market Cycles.
• Is it possible to lose money with passive Investing?

And for something that I truly hope will turn the year around for you, a lasagna recipe: 

• Bon Appetit Lasagna
• Bon Appetit Lasagna (Vegetarian)

 Bonus points for those who make the dish and listen to the podcast at the same time!

Aggregation Theory

From Ben Thompson

Aggregation Theory provides a framework to understand the impact of the Internet on nearly all industries.

Read more here.

Successful Ageing

From Daniel J. Levitin

“As I’ve grown older myself, and have spent more time with people who are in the last quarter of their lives, I’ve seen a different side of aging. My parents are now in their mid-eighties and are as engaged with life as they have ever been.“

Read the full article here.

ABCs of Economic Recovery

From Public Policy Forum Podcast

“Perhaps a middle ground can open up between unrestrained spending and unreasonable restraint for Canada’s COVID-19”

Listen to the full podcast here.

You can read this month’s entire list below, and browse through past lists here.

How to Create an Investment Policy Statement | Christine Benz

“We’ve created an investment policy statement template you can use to document your strategy, but you can also customize your own IPS in a Word document. If you’re investing for multiple goals–retirement as well as college, for example–it will probably make sense to create a separate IPS for each goal.”

  Life and Death | Scott Galloway

“Childhood, education, failure, success, and relationships shape us. But I’d posit that what defines us is life and death — bringing a child into the world and losing someone you love. Not the moment of birth or death, but the proximate before and after. More people are losing more people than at any point in our history.”

 Incentives Matter | Joshua M Brown

“This got me thinking about incentives, good and bad, and how they affect both performance and behavior in the markets.”

Presidential Terms and Market Cycles | Ben Carlson

“Sure, the president can have an impact on sentiment and tax rates do play a role in the decisions consumers and businesses make but where we are in the cycle typically has far more to say in regards to the performance of the markets over anyone’s time in the Oval Office.”

A budding investor asks: Is it possible to lose money with passive investing?| Darryl Brown

“Even with a steady market rise since 2009, a trend has started to emerge where outsized investment gains are coming from a smaller subset of companies. With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, this trend is now glaring”