How much should you be saving? How should you invest in a crisis?  Should you invest in individual stocks? Should you try and time the market to avoid market downturns? 

Nick tackles these questions and more as we discuss his new book, Just Keep Buying. You will learn about the data supporting this simple concept "just keep buying" when it comes to investing. In addition, you will learn about Nick's data driven approach to investing which can be seen in his weekly posts on his Of Dollars and Data blog. Enjoy!

Details:

• 0:00~1:42 Introduction
• 1:42~5:48 Creative process behind the Of Dollars and Data Blog
• 5:48~9:07 Most read and most controversial blog post
• 9:07~9:59 Importance of being aware of fees
• 9:59~12:05 Motivation to write Just Keep Investing
• 12:05~13:49 Coming up with the title of the book 
• 13:49~17:38 Early money lessons
• 17:38~18:57 Structure of the book
• 18:57~21:16 Favorite story
• 21:16~23:51 The law of the stomach
• 23:51~26:06 Spending money guilt free
• 26:06~26:25 A word from NGPF
• 26:25~29:50 Why people should invest
• 29:50~31:37 Stock performance during inflationary periods
• 31:37~34:03 Series I bonds
• 34:03~36:46 Diversification in investing
• 36:46~41:55 Lessons learned from GameStop
• 41:55~44:46 Active investing versus passive investing
• 44:46~48:34 Investing during a crisis
• 48:34~51:46 Psychology of financial decisions
• 51:46~54:05 Advice for high school students
• 54:05~56:15 How investing became easier
• 56:15~57:28 Investing in cryptocurrencies
• 57:28~59:00 The sequence of returns
• 59:00~60:15 Conclusion

Resources:

• Nick's Blog: Of Dollars and Data
• Nick discussed these books:
  • Don't Trust Your Gut: Using Data to Get What You Really Want in Life

  • The Intelligent Asset Allocator (note: author William Bernstein appeared earlier on the NGPF Podcast)

• Spiva Reports compare performance of active managers to those of index benchmarks over the short and long term.

  • NGPF Question of the Day used this data source 

Quotes:

• “Just knowing yourself is very important because then you can optimize for which area in life should I move towards for a career, opportunity, income, etc. Once you double down on that, that’s where you gain the edge over people sitting and not figuring out their strengths.”

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Other popular investing episodes on the NGPF Podcast: 

• Burton Malkiel discusses his classic book, Random Walk Down Wall Street, and the index fund revolution that followed
• Patrick Geddes discusses his book, Transparent Investing

About the Authors

Tim Ranzetta

Tim's saving habits started at seven when a neighbor with a broken hip gave him a dog walking job. Her recovery, which took almost a year, resulted in Tim getting to know the bank tellers quite well (and accumulating a savings account balance of over $300!). His recent entrepreneurial adventures have included driving a shredding truck, analyzing executive compensation packages for Fortune 500 companies and helping families make better college financing decisions. After volunteering in 2010 to create and teach a personal finance program at Eastside College Prep in East Palo Alto, Tim saw firsthand the impact of an engaging and activity-based curriculum, which inspired him to start a new non-profit, Next Gen Personal Finance.

More posts by Tim

Ren Makino

Ren started interning at NGPF in 2014, and worked part-time through high school and college. With his knowledge growing alongside NGPF, he joined the team to work full-time after graduating from college in 2020. He is also the producer of the NGPF podcast. During his free time, he likes to try out coffees from different roasters across the world.

More posts by Ren