Studying the markets of the past to think about investing in the future.
I studied economics and spent much of my career working in economics and finance. I taught financial economics at both the undergraduate and graduate levels and also served in senior research positions at leading financial institutions and an international research organization.
After retirement, I began another kind of study: investing my own money in the U.S. stock market.
A background in economics and decades of experience in finance do not necessarily make investing easy. Once I began investing my own money, I discovered that the economy described in textbooks and the stock market often behave quite differently. There were—and still are—many situations in which the right investment decision is far from obvious.
This blog began with the questions I found myself asking along the way.
Why invest in U.S. stocks?
Do stock prices really fall when interest rates rise?
Which months have historically been the best times to buy and sell stocks?
Why have U.S. stocks historically performed strongly after midterm elections?
Could the explosive growth of NVIDIA and today’s other Mega 7 companies have been recognized in advance?
What were the key drivers behind companies that rose tenfold or even a hundredfold?
At what point could investors have recognized their potential?
How can we find the companies that might rise tenfold or a hundredfold in the future?
Are 2× and 3× leveraged products really unsuitable for long-term investing?
Which industries and companies might lead the market over the next decade?
Whenever possible, I begin with data rather than assertions.
From the long-term performance of the S&P 500, Nasdaq, and Nasdaq-100 to interest rates, inflation, corporate earnings, and stock prices, I examine historical data—sometimes going back as far as a century—and try to explain what those numbers tell us in plain language.
But this blog is not an academic journal.
I also record the ideas, successes, mistakes, and lessons that come from decades of economic and financial research and from investing my own money. Most importantly, every article begins with something I genuinely wanted to understand as an investor in U.S. stocks.
The purpose of this blog is to explore future investment opportunities at the intersection of data, economic theory, and real-world investing.
The future never repeats the past exactly. But when we examine 50 or 100 years of market history, we can see recurring patterns, enduring principles of the stock market, and common characteristics shared by successful companies.
Finding the best ROUTE toward successful investing today and in the future through those lessons is, to me, one of the most fascinating parts of studying investment.
A Retired Economist’s Journey Through U.S. Stocks is a record of that continuing study.