Is this you? As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.
Claim your profile
Articles by William Bernstein
Have Stocks Reached a Permanently High Plateau?
The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives. You may recognize the title of this article as a quote from Irving Fisher, an American economist who enjoyed Keynes-level prominence during the 1920s. He made this remark on October 15, 1929. Have we reached our Fisher moment, here in 2026, as October progresses? Popular opinion appears divided. On one hand, there’s been no shortage of bubble talk and fears that stocks are teeter-tottering at nosebleed levels.
Future Schlock: A Guide to the Singularity
The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives. Confused by the Singularity and the impending AI apocalypse? Theoretical physicist turned science writer Adam Becker is here to help with “More Everything Forever: AI Overlords, Space Empires, and Silicon Valley’s Crusade to Control the Fate of Humanity,” a jaundiced tour d’horizon of the peculiar end-times stories that IT visionaries — particularly the richest and most powerful ones — tell themselves.
Long TIPS Yield 3%. Time to Buy?
The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives. In late 2008, TIPS yields rose past 3.0%, a juicy rate that lasted barely a month. By 2010, yields had fallen below 2.0%; by 2011, below 1.0%; and just before inflation exploded and the Fed tightened in 2021, the 5-year TIPS yield fell to -1.76%, and even the 30-year sported a negative yield. As we write this, long TIPS yields once again yield 3.0% and, as in 2008, these rates may not last long.
Long TIPS Yield 3%. Time to Buy?
The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives. In late 2008, TIPS yields rose past 3.0%, a juicy rate that lasted barely a month. By 2010, yields had fallen below 2.0%; by 2011, below 1.0%; and just before inflation exploded and the Fed tightened in 2021, the 5-year TIPS yield fell to -1.76%, and even the 30-year sported a negative yield. As we write this, long TIPS yields once again yield 3.0% and, as in 2008, these rates may not last long.
Akin Attorneys Author Articles on Prediction Market Regulation and Enforcement
July 13, 2026 James Joseph Benjamin Jr., William Bernstein, Katherine Goldstein, John Cullen Murphy Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP + Follow x Following x Following - Unfollow Contact To embed, copy and paste the code into your website or blog: As federal agencies turn their attention to insider trading in global prediction markets, they must overcome a threshold issue if the relevant trading activity occurs outside the U.S.: the limited reach of U.S. law.
School for Scoundrels
The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives. There’s something rotten in Palo Alto. First came the collapse of Theranos, the brain child of Stanford alum Elizabeth Holmes, whose blood analysis device rollouts turned out to be elaborate hoaxes. Then came Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX and its theft of client assets. Bankman-Fried, while not a Stanford grad, was raised in the school’s campus environment by two well-known professors.
Money Illusion — A User’s Manual
The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives. You know the term “Money Illusion”: mistakenly believing that today’s dollars have the same purchasing power as the dollars of ten years ago. Or twenty. Or whenever you got your first job. As with any illusion, fake replaces real, image supplants fact, and fog obscures truth. We’re here to help you sort it out. Money illusion in today’s world comes in three flavors: prices, wages, and retirement savings.
The Many Utilities of Retirement
The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives. What do “the utilities of retirement” refer to? Buy gas and electric stocks and live off the dividends? No. Not in this article. We’re talking about utility as an economic term of art, meaning reward, pleasure, and satisfaction. Because economics is entirely secular, utility comes from spending money on goods, services, and experiences.
Blame the Victim, Inc.
The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives. Thirty years ago, I had a front-row seat for the dawn of the opioid epidemic, as ever more patients taking large amounts of OxyContin for chronic spine pain began showing up in my neurology practice.
Relax, We’re Doomed
The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives. Peter Thiel and Sam Altman have a plan for you: Come the apocalypse, you’re on your own, while they jet to Thiel’s 477-acre New Zealand redoubt.
Funt Book Explains Why “Everybody Loses”
The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives. Most legal observers, if asked to name the modern Supreme Court’s most impactful cases, wouldn’t mention the 2018 Murphy v. National Collegiate Athletic Association decision.
Sorkin’s Warning Highlights Unnerving Similarities
The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives. Marine architects do not design ships for clear skies and calm seas. In the same vein, prudent investors design their portfolios — and the broader aspects of their financial life as well — to endure the worst of times. The magic of return compounding does the investor little good if their portfolio doesn’t survive capitalism’s inevitable hurricanes.
To Delay or Not to Delay Social Security? That Is the Question
Wait for Medicare Eligibility The sane person who does not have their back to the wall does not retire until Medicare eligibility is in reach — typically, age 63.5, when COBRA can take you through. Avoiding half years, we reevaluated the question of delay assuming a choice between starting Social Security at 64 or delaying it six years to age 70. Living expenses are higher by two years of inflation, and the starting portfolio size stays at $1,000,000. Bingo! That one tweak reverses the outcome.
The Peter Bernstein Rule: Beware Empty Memory Banks
The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives. These days, it’s all stocks all the time, with reputable authorities calling on small investors to put everything they have saved into equities — a broad, low-cost index fund, of course — holding aside only a speck of emergency cash.
Engineers Build, Lawyers Obstruct, China Eats Our Lunch
The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives. In 2008, California voters approved construction of a high-speed rail link between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Seventeen years later, only a small segment is under construction; it might, or might not, open in 2033 with a total budget of $138 billion.
The Widow Tax Hit Debunked
The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives. A fear appeal motivates the client by highlighting bad things that might happen if no action is taken. A time-honored example: the tax hit that awaits the widowed survivor. As everyone knows, most tax brackets for singles are half as wide as those for married couples. It follows that the widowed survivor will pay twice as much in tax and live only half as well if something is not done. Perhaps a Roth conversion?
Whistling Past the Graveyard
The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives. Surely, you’ve heard this comforting advice, trotted out for those preparing to retire: “Good news! You will only have to cover 70% of your pre-retirement spending, because … you don’t have the money to fund anything more!” Oops. We said the quiet part out loud. It would indeed be sweet if, at the instant of retirement, you could reduce your spending by 30% to live just as well as the moment before you retired.
Smart Roth, Dumb Roth
The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives. We love Roth accounts — really, we do. As long as we don’t have to pay too high an entrance fee. Which would be dumb. Peter Thiel may be the smartest Roth investor ever.
Buy, Borrow, Die: Why This Popular Tax Strategy for the Rich Doesn’t Work
The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives. One man’s tax strategy is another’s moral outrage, and few tax maneuvers evoke more controversy than the recent popularity of “buy, borrow, die.” (BBD). The concept is simple. Say you’re a billionaire whose net worth is tied up in equities, either private or publicly traded. Further assume that one fine day a Gulfstream III or private equity opportunity catches your fancy.
Meeting Unmet Needs: An Expanded View Of Community Benefits
Whenever comparisons are made between health care spending in the United States and other western countries, U.S. expenditures are for being multiples of those observed in Europe and elsewhere. Those international differentials narrow considerably, however, when the combination of health care, public health, and social services spending is considered.
A 401(k) in Every Pot? The Glidepath to Nowhere
The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives. A decade ago, James Russell, a sociologist at Eastern Connecticut State University, thought his approaching retirement was well funded. The retirement system for Connecticut educators, like many, is two-tiered, with both traditional defined benefit (DB) pension and defined contribution (DC) 401(a) schemes, the latter similar to ubiquitous private sector 401(k) plans.
The World According to Karp
The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives. Elon Musk’s recent ascent to the pinnacle of American politics has proclaimed the power and influence exerted by a tiny group of tech billionaires — in journalist Gil Duran’s felicitous phrase, “The Nerd Reich.” Alexander Karp’s The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West, written by one of its card-carrying members, opens a glimpse into their mindset.
Oracle of the Apocalypse
The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives. Americans used to worry about Armageddon. I’m old enough to recall ducking and covering in elementary school, and fallout shelters as a must-have home improvement. That long-gone popular obsession with nuclear holocaust was appropriate; on several occasions during the Cold War, the planet came within seconds of incineration.
No One Wins a Trade War
Donald Trump is fond of saying that trade wars are easy to win. Among the litany of patently false Trumpisms, this may well prove one of the most disastrous. Last week, Trump claimed that his threatened—and deferred—25 percent tariffs on Mexico and Canada will finally go into effect tomorrow. He also said that existing 10 percent tariffs on Chinese goods will double. Whether he’s bluffing is anyone’s guess. Protective tariffs risk triggering a cycle of escalation that ends well for no one.
Here We Go Again: Merton Share and Why I Don’t Use Retirement Calculators
The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives. Remember portfolio mean variance optimization (MVO)? Unless you’re of Medicare age, you might not, but in the late 1980s, it was all the rage.
Catastrophe’s Thin Red Line
“Risk,” according to London Business School’s Elroy Dimson, “means that more things can happen than will happen.” Serhii Plokhy’s Chernobyl Roulette provides the reader with a compelling demonstration of that dictum: During the recent war in the Ukraine, catastrophe balanced on the knife edge between “can happen” and “will happen” at both Chernobyl and Zaporizhia.
What I Learned From John Rekenthaler
As you know, John Rekenthaler recently announced he is retiring from Morningstar. Hired as a fund analyst in 1988, John was one of Morningstar’s first employees. During his tenure, he served in various leadership posts in research and investment management, and the firm reflects his imprint in ways large and small, from the Morningstar Style Box to the Morningstar Category classification system to helping put our retirement business on the map.
Who Needs Academic Finance Literature?
The value of discipline and optimism Schleifer and Vishny’s “The Limits of Arbitrage” (The Journal of Finance, 1997) pointed out that both investors and their money managers tend to bail from worthwhile strategies during market panics, just when their expected returns are the highest; starved of investment capital, these profitable arbitrage opportunities go unexploited. As Charlie Ellis has observed, one wins on Wall Street by being smarter, harder working, or more disciplined than competitors.
Why Should You Care When Stocks Plunge?
“Global Stocks Dive as Trades Unravel,” screamed the front page of The Wall Street Journal the morning after the S&P 500 fell nearly three percent this summer on August 5, a move accompanied by an even more alarming VIX spike over 60, both apparently precipitated by the unwinding of – wait for it – the yen-dollar carry trade. Should you care? Of course not, and if your phone was exploding with rattled clients, you might revisit how you screen prospects.
The Problem with Human Beings
Late in his career, Richard Overy, an English historian specializing in the Second World War, identified an epistemological flaw at the heart of his profession: Few human activities are more central to historiography than war, and yet historians are poorly equipped to understand its evolutionary and psychological roots: Why War? attempts, with only partial success, to close this gap. Overy’s narrative begins with the 1932 correspondence between Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud.
The Great Rewiring
In Jonathan Haidt’s telling, the lives of adolescents irrevocably changed in 2010 with the introduction of the iPhone 4 and its front-facing camera. Suddenly, young users were inundated with exquisitely composed, edited, and curated images of acquaintances and celebrities bearing no resemblance to what they saw in the mirror, with the predictable erosion of their self-esteem and psychological health.
Four Steps to Secure Your Retirement Income
Editor’s note: This is part three of a three-part series that takes a look at planning for retirement during the “fragile decade” — the five years before you retire plus the first five years of your retirement. Part one is In Retirement Planning, Consider the Entire Journey. Part two is Goals-Based Retirement Planning Is All About You. When it comes to withdrawing from your portfolio, many retirees fear that their cash flow might run out before they do.
Four Steps to Secure Your Retirement Income
The back view of a construction worker wearing a safety vest and holding a construction helmet. When it comes to withdrawing from your portfolio, many retirees fear that their cash flow might run out before they do. As illustrated in part one of this series, relying on stock sales to meet retirement expenses can be risky, especially during a market downturn early in retirement. How can we leverage the insights from parts one and two to safeguard our retirement income?
First World Problems
Were the proverbial Martian to land near the U.S. Treasury and Labor departments, he would conclude that Americans, with their ever-increasing incomes, wealth, and access to whizzy modern conveniences, must be the happiest inhabitants in the history of mankind. Alas, further contact with ordinary people would quickly disabuse him of that notion.
Looking for Rosie
Tech entrepreneur Max Bennett is too young to have grown up on The Jetsons, a 1960s futuristic cartoon series based on the more popular stone-age Flintstones (both, in turn, cartoon adaptations of the 1950s The Honeymooners). But Jetsons reruns, which featured smart watches, cell phones, and video calls, made an impression on the budding tech entrepreneur.
Santayana’s Dividend: On Investing in U.S. Financial History
Advisor Perspectives welcomes guest contributions. The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives. Few investments pay off as well as time spent pursuing financial history – to paraphrase George Santayana only slightly: study the past in order to prevent it from picking your pockets.
Duluth, the New Jerusalem
Beyond abortion and immigration, few topics polarize Americans as much as climate change. First, the facts: Around the turn of the last century, Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius predicted that carbon dioxide (CO2) from the burning of fossil fuels would warm the planet. This didn’t worry him much, since he thought higher temperatures would improve crop yields and prevent an ice age recurrence.
The Quotations of Chairman Ray
Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. –Lord Acton Modern postindustrial capitalism can endow vast amounts of wealth upon individuals. When the financial media, desperate for advertising revenue, deifies successful businessmen this frequently divorces them from reality, an effect amplified by lack of feedback from employees and associates petrified by their boss’s power over them. This is not a new story.
The Two-Percent Dilution
The Two-Percent Dilution Over the past two centuries, common stocks have provided a sizeable risk premium to U.S. investors. For the 200 years from 1802 until 2001, inclusive, the returns for stocks, bonds, and bills were 8.42%, 4.88%, and 4.21%, respectively. In the most simplistic terms, the reason is obvious: a bill or a bond is a promise to pay interest and principal and, as such, its upside is sharply limited.
Morningstar’s Best Books to Give and Get for 2023
The end of each year marks the time when Morningstar researchers circulate their list of recommended books, as colleagues work to use up the last of their annual education stipend. With the wild gyrations of 2023, it’s not surprising that this year’s recommended reading list has a few entries that try to give the meaning and context behind market movements, not to mention the investing opportunities presented to intrepid investors.
Sex, Lies, and Optimizing Utility
Victor Haghani has thought long and hard about his participation in the 1998 blowup of Long-Term Capital Management (LTCM). His big mistake, he concluded, was investing 80% of his personal assets in the firm. This loss also cratered, in econ-speak, his “utility,” which is to say it made him miserable. The take home, he writes in The Missing Billionaires, is that he didn’t size his personal stake in LTCM properly. Had he invested only half as much, he’d have been far less unhappy.
Why did the Dutch go mad for tulips?
Tulips have long-endured as one of the most important cultural symbols of the Netherlands, arguably occupying the same rank as windmills and wooden clogs in this regard. Thousands flock to Amsterdam and to the Keukenhof in nearby Lisse, one of the world’s largest flower gardens, to view these tulips when they bloom in Spring.
How America Fell in Love with the Power of the Free Market
Advisor Perspectives welcomes guest contributions. The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives. The Big Myth is the remarkable, and largely untold, story of how America fell in love with market fundamentalism. To appreciate the power of this ethos, look back no further than the recent pandemic.
But, But, What about Buffett and Lynch?
This article was excerpted and modified from pages 70–76 of the second edition of The Four Pillars of Investing, with the kind permission of the publisher, McGraw-Hill Inc. You can purchase this book from the link on this page. Skeptics of the efficient market hypothesis and passive investing are quick to point out three of its most prominent exceptions: Peter Lynch, Warren Buffett, and Jim Simons, obviously skilled money managers who convincingly outperformed the market over a long period.
The Wealth Pump
Peter Turchin’s End Times is a brilliant, sprawling, and oft-times maddening look at the rise and fall of nations and empire. He’s worried, and rightly so, about the United States. The book posits that the economies of prosperous states inevitably turn into “wealth pumps” that enrich well-placed elites and immiserate everyone else – so-called “counter-elites” – who respond with devastating backlashes that afflict their societies with discord and, at worst, civil war.
Design Your Portfolio With the Worst 2% of Times in Mind
William “Bill” Bernstein is a neurologist, co-founder of the investment firm Efficient Frontier Advisors and the author of several books including the recently released “The Four Pillars of Investing, Second Edition: Lessons for Building a Winning Portfolio” (McGraw Hill, 2023). We spoke about strategies investors can use to protect their portfolios during periods of severe downside risk.
Sex, Lies, and the Financial Media
This article was excerpted and modified from pages 239‑245 of the second edition of The Four Pillars of Investing, with the kind permission of the publisher, McGraw-Hill Inc. You can purchase this book from the link on this page. Inspired by the modest market turbulence late last year, I just couldn’t resist trying my hand at a daily financial column. Only the names have been changed to protect the clueless. There’s No Place to Hide in This Market Hyman Q.
Homelessness, Political Ideology, and the Fallacy of the Single Cause
Advisor Perspectives welcomes guest contributions. The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives. The next time someone expresses a firmly held opinion about homelessness, ever so gently recommend that they read Homelessness is a Housing Problem. The more people who read this book, the closer we’ll be to a solution.
[Webinar] Health Care and Innovation: Why Not Better and Cheaper? Part 1: Missing Innovations - July 26th, 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm ET | JD Supra
New Manatt Webinar Series Explores Innovation in Health Care—and Why It Matters for Patients and Society The evolution of cellphones demonstrates that quality can increase while prices fall. Why doesn’t health care also get better and cheaper?
The Trap of Following Superstar Portfolio Managers Like Cathie Wood
About the author: William J. Bernstein is a retired neurologist, cofounder of investment management firm Efficient Frontier Advisors, and on the board of the John C. Bogle Center for Financial Literacy. He also has written a numerous books on investing, history, and social psychology. Read a section adapted with permission from McGraw Hill from Bernstein’s latest book, The Four Pillars of Investing: Lessons for Building a Winning Portfolio, below.
Show More
loading
Actions
Is this you?
As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.Get in touch with William
Contact William, search articles and posts on X, monitor coverage, and track replies from one place.
Learn more about Muck Rack