Send a text

During my second junior year in college, I took a Shakespeare class. I was a business major and wore a coat and tie to class. In a roomful of liberal arts majors, it was obvious that I was the class nerd. The only line I can remember from the lectures was, “All that glitters is not gold.” Full disclosure: I had to Google “Shakespeare” to make sure I had the proper quote. It comes from the Merchant of Venice and is a warning against being misled by outward appearances.

But getting back to Shakespeare’s all that glitters is not gold thing. There are 8,314 mutual funds available to the investment public. In calendar 2025, just 11% of these 8,314 mutual funds beat the market. Their average gain was 13.5%, barely half the 25.7% total return of the market.

Which begs the question? What is the market? The gold standard for the market is the S&P 500 and the benchmark most quote by the financial media. It consists of 500 publicly traded companies selected by a committee hired by the index’s owner, Stand and Poors. It is the most comprehensive of the major indexes and includes 92 percent of all publicly traded companies.

Of the 8,314 mutual funds produced by Wall Street, 73 percent are actively managed funds, which means that they have a professional manager who trades the stocks in the fund’s portfolio in order to increase its performance. The remaining 27 percent are passive index funds whose object is to mimic the performance of a specific market index. Index funds don’t trade in order to enhance their performance thus eliminate all trading cost and the expense of a fund manager.

In 2025, only 914 of all the mutual funds equaled or beat the market. Of that 914, 177 were index funds who mimic the S&P 500. Of the remaining 737 funds, only 112 made the high-performance list in 2024. All 77 S&P 500 funds were on the winners list in 2024, and the year before and the year before, and so on.

A 401k account is an investment account not a savings account. But investing is not a one size fits all proposition. Those who manage their 401k who manage their 401k wisely will get the gold. Those who take a casual approach to the management of their 401k will end up with shiny pyrite, also known as fools’ gold.

Support the show

Send us a text

The American economic engine is the greatest wealth producing machine the world has ever known. At the turn of the 20th century, it produced $4 billion in revenue for the American people. Last year it produced $30 trillion: A 4,000 percent increase. In 1900, a handful of individuals, known as robber barons, owned 70% of the nation’s assets. In 1950, less than 3% of the American population owned stocks. Today, 60 percent of American families own stock and 73 percent of the national wealth.

We can attribute the growth of the American economic engine to our capitalist system and the ingenuity and determination of the American people. The shift in the ownership of its output came about in 1975 with the introduction of the 401k program. The acronym, 401k comes from a section in the tax code which allows workers to deduct a portion of their wages and invest it in a tax-sheltered account, to be used later, in their retirement years.

The magnitude and importance of today’s 401k program is staggering. There are over 90 million plan participants, who own a total of $12 trillion in assets. In addition to this, there has been another 30 million Americans who have retired and rolled their assets over into an IRA, bringing the total value of the program to over $35 trillion. This is a figure 15 percent larger than the current Gross Domestic Product. And last year, these assets produced $1.5 trillion in additional wealth because their owners had the forethought and discipline to forego instant gratification and the dedication to wisely manage their 401k.

Support the show

Send us a text

Tis the season where we titillate our naïve young people with the story of a mystical elderly gentleman who rewards his followers with gifts, the quality of which is based on their year-to-date behavior.

An argument can be made that Mr. Market rewards his followers in a similar fashion. The mission of this episode of my podcast is to provide you with some perspective on how Mr. Market treated his followers in the year 2025. As you listen to this, I respectfully request that you keep the following in mind. First, investing is not a one size fits all proposition. Every investor comes to the table with unique objectives, skill sets, and service provider. Secondly, my remarks are aimed at the 90 million 401(k) participants who are required to manage their own account, but are limited to a menu of mutual funds provided by their employer.

I want to close with a major caveat. Keep in mind that Mr. Market is a composite of many investors, each of which brings their own perspective and skill set to the table. Consequently, in the short-term Mr. Markets activity is random and unpredictable. In this context I asked that you enter 2026 with an open and flexible perspective and do not consider what I have said about 2025 in any way shape or form as a prediction to how 2026 will unfold.

Support the show

Send us a text

The Wizard of Oz is about a Kansas farm girl who is traveling along a yellow brick road to get to the City of Oz, home to a person with special powers whom she believes can solve all her problems. Along the way she finds some odd characters who are seeking a heart, a mind and courage. When they arrive in the presence of supposedly omnipotent Wizard of Oz, they pull back the curtain to discover that he is just an ordinary man from Omaha, Nebraska, using mechanical trickery to conceal his real self.

There is a parallel between the Wizard of Oz and your 401(k). For decades Wall Street professionals have used vocabulary to create an illusion of investment superiority. But the curtain that hid Wall Street’s truth has been pulled back and their deception has been revealed. Millions of ordinary investors have discovered that through the use of the unique features of a 401(k) and index funds, they already have the skills they need to outperform the pros. In this insightful episode of my podcast, I will explore many of the vocabulary terms Wall Street types use to distinguish themselves from ordinary strap hangers like you and I.

Support the show

Send us a text

Investing is not rocket science, nor is it a roulette wheel. It's a plow horse, a giant animal who turns the earth over, step by arduous step, so that when harvest time comes, the earth pours out an abundant crop.

Wall Street Dummies are investors who have learned how to combine the unique characteristics of 401(k) plans with a plow horse approach to self-direct their own investment portfolios and outperform the pros. Over the course of the past decades, they have amassed a combined net worth of $15 trillion, a staggering figure that is double that of the federal governments annual budget.

In this insightful episode of my podcast, I will explain why the stock market resembles a plow house and detail strategies used by 401(k) investors to be first in line when the harvest payout begins. Where will you be at harvest time?

Support the show

Send us a text

At the end of it every straightaway, there's a curve. But this exciting and informative episode of my podcast is not about auto racing. It's about how to preserve and grow the assets in your 401(k). In the last two years the S&P 500 has grown over 50%, and the NASDAQ, over 70%. With each passing day the number of times the word bubble appears in the Wall Street Journal increases. Wall Street Dummies understand that now is the time to keep emotions in check. They also understand that the because of the unique structure of 401(k) plans they are able to respond when Mr. Markets straightaway becomes a curve. In the following discussion I will outline these options and help you chose the one that works for you.

Support the show

Send us a text

During my 62-year journey with Wall Street, I have been a witness to and a participant in, many significant events. I was there on Black Monday, 1987. I enjoyed the ride of the once in a lifetime 1990’s bull market. I chuckled my way through the dot.com bubble and cried in my beer during the subprime meltdown of 2007 to 2009. All of these events were profoundly documented and dissected by the financial median and their Wall Street cronies.

The subject of this incredibly insightful episode of my podcast is a less documented and dissected stock market development, the index fund revolution. The index fund revolution percolating for fifty years and just recently has become a force to be reckoned with.

Contrary to a plethora of urban myths, index funds are not totally passive in construction or application. I begin this episode with a discussion on why actively managed funds fail to beat the market. I conclude with a presentation on how index funds actively respond to the ever-changing market infrastructure and how 401(k) plan participants can use them to outperform the pros.

Support the show

Send us a text

Up until a few weeks ago I had no desire in delving into the mystic world of crypto currency. However, when Trump announced that he was going to direct the Department of Labor to allow cryptocurrency and private equity as an option to the country’s 90 million 401(k) participants, I concluded it was time to risk becoming tainted and find out what all the hoopla was about. Not to become proficient in it, but rather to understand what form it might take in order to enter the 401(k) realm and help the unsuspecting public deal with this new offering/temptation. I spent countless house scouring the internet and reading the few available books on the subject. Spoiler alert: the voodoo part of the title of this episode applies to cryptocurrency.

And since you are already listening, I thought I might as well throw out some of my pithy thoughts and observations on the on the ongoing war of words between President Trump, the Fed chairman Jerry Powell and just for good measure I will throw Jim Kramer into the mix. The topic is relevant and timely because American workers hold $3.7 trillion dollars’ worth of bond funds in their 401k plans that have come under pressure due to the confluence of the Trump tariffs, Musk’s DODE brouhaha and the anemic decline in the inflation rate. This is where the snake oil thing comes into the picture.

Support the show