Ben Carlson

Money most certainly does not buy happiness.

A 20% gain for national home prices over a one year period is absolutely nuts.

A mix of speculative and conservative behavior from investors makes this a difficult market to handicap. 

A noticeable relationship has emerged this year between tech stocks and interest rates:When interest rates rise, tech stocks fall.When interest rates fall, tech stocks rise. But it...

It isn't always prices that adjust.

If we do a tale of the tape, you’ll notice many differences between these two legends.

Corrections happen all the time. The reason is irrelevant.

Norm Macdonald and others who bet big and lose big.

According to Bankrate the average interest rate for savings accounts at a bank right now is 0.06%. And there's $10 trillion sitting there.

It’s entirely possible the internet has created an environment in which mini-manias occur more regularly than they did in the past without creating a situation in which...

The housing market continues to set new records.The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index just reported its highest one-year gain in history, up nearly 19%...

Optimism sells today.

So who wins — corporations or labor? That is the billion-dollar question.

Make all student loans at 0% interest.

The U.S. stock market is far from cheap at the moment.It's dare I say, expensive.This shouldn't be a surprise considering the S&P 500 is up 12 of the past 13 years (including this...

CNBC recently highlighted a survey that asked a group of Americans how much money they need to feel financially secure.The average answer was a little more than half a million...

I don’t think we’re making a big enough deal about the positive impact lower mortgage rates are going to have on household finances for years to come.

Bull markets are way more fun than bear markets but they can also warp your brain.Here are 9 questions I'm pondering at the moment in one of the great bull markets of my lifetime.

There are plenty of ways to be rich and only a few of them are about money.

Interest rates have impacted the housing market but emotions have a bigger impact.

Things are far from perfect now (and they always will be) but you could make the case that our version of the roaring 20s is already here.

Bull markets can last longer than you think.

Author James Playsted Wood once wrote, "The thing that most affects the stock market is everything."    

If you dig into the components of the consumer price index, you'll notice housing makes up a big part of the government's inflation calculation.The latest data from the BLS shows...

Some market-related stats I've been compiling for a while.

Risk is a complicated topic.It's hard to define. It's impossible to eliminate. And our perception of risk can often have unintended consequences.When things feel safer, we can let...

There are tons of books about how to prepare for a market crash. But few to help you navigate a long bull market.

Lots of smart people have failed at it.

Just as Netflix forced Disney into streaming, Tesla forced Ford (and others) into the EV space. Tesla may have awakened a giant in Ford.

The year-over-year U.S. inflation rate came in today at nearly 5%, the fastest pace of higher prices since 2008.

What if both crashes and recoveries are faster in the future?

Wealth means different things to different people.

Things are so much different than just a few years ago.

You can't take it with you.

Whenever there's a huge run-up in prices in any financial asset there is usually more than one reason for it.Take housing as an example.Prices are going crazy because of...

It's never been easier to pay attention to everything that's going on with the markets, economy, individual companies or your own portfolio.

Based strictly on valuations, the U.S. stock market is in a bubble:There are reasons for this.Interest rates have been at or near generational lows for more than a decade. The...

Annual returns are all over the map.

If we have another roaring 20s, fraud will be part of it.

The Great Financial Crisis in 2008 left an indelible mark on my psyche as an investor.But it wasn't the crash itself that has shaped me as an investor. It was the aftermath of the...

There are a number of factors that drive the markets that most investors pay attention to. Things like earnings, economic growth, interest rates, inflation, market trends and...

There's an old saying that bull markets are born on pessimism, grow on skepticism, mature on optimism and die on euphoria.This description might need to be updated for the current...

There's no question residential real estate in the United States is on fire. The latest Case-Shiller Index data showed an 11% year-over-year increase:And this data is only through...

Since the advent of each index in 1979, the Russell 1000 Growth and Value Indexes have nearly identical annual returns through March 2021 -- 12.1% for growth and 12.0% for value. But...

If the last year or so has taught us anything about U.S. government debt, it should be that we don't need to "pay" for more spending.The money is essentially created out of thin air...

It isn't that hard.

One of the strange subplots of the past decade or so in the markets is bad behavior has been rewarded. That may finally be ending.

This is an economic experiment on a massive scale the likes of which this country has never seen before.

So now there’s a supply problem and companies are scrambling to meet demand.

The market always prices in the future.

Japan was the bubble that defines all bubbles.

Dollar cost averaging is boring but it works.

The housing market is hot, hot, hot.

Maybe US stocks are in a bubble. But there are plenty of markets that definitely are not.

The dot-com bubble laid the tracks for the Internet as we know it today.

What to do when you think you're in a bubble.

Historical market data can’t help you predict the future but it's useful as a way to understand the potential risks and rewards you can see as an investor.

Things are about to change from a monetary policy emphasis to a fiscal policy emphasis.

Cognitive dissonance leads to self-delusion.