Master Class Videos

1. Mutual Funds and the S&P 500: I said most mutual funds have never beaten the S&P 500. The more precise way to say it: the majority of actively managed mutual funds underperform the S&P 500 over long periods of time, particularly after fees are factored in. This is well documented in long-term market data. The point stands — I just want the wording to be accurate.

2. Prime Rate Spread: I described the prime rate as always being exactly 3 percentage points above the federal funds rate. That is the longstanding banking convention and has held consistently, but it's worth noting it's an industry convention rather than a legal requirement. "Typically" or "historically" is more precise than "always."

1. Debt-to-Equity Mortgage Analogy: A clarification on the mortgage analogy I used. I cited $50,000 income and a $40,000 mortgage to illustrate the concept, but D/E is calculated using assets and liabilities, not income. The correct framing: if someone owns a home worth $90,000 with a $40,000 mortgage still owed, their equity is $50,000. Debt ($40,000) ÷ equity ($50,000) = 0.8. Below 1 — manageable. The point of the analogy holds; the numbers just needed that correction.

2. Anthropic & SpaceX: I mentioned both as examples of confirmation bias — are you drawn to a company because of the founder, the name, or the buzz, rather than the analysis? That's emotion, not analysis. I also used them to illustrate a practical limitation: neither is publicly traded, so you cannot look them up on Yahoo Finance to run the ratios we covered. There are no numbers to look at. That's the point — you cannot make a ratio-based decision on a company whose financials you cannot see. You can't like numbers you can't see.

3. Sharpe Ratio Framing: I simplified Sharpe as "below 1 is bad, 1 or higher is good" as a beginner's baseline. More precisely: compare a fund's Sharpe Ratio against others in the same fund category. A conservative bond fund or low-volatility fund may have a Sharpe below 1 and still be appropriate for certain investors. The rule of thumb holds for most equity mutual funds and ETFs, but always compare apples to apples within the same category.

4. Mutual Funds vs. Index Funds: When I said mutual funds are "designed to beat the market," I was referring specifically to actively managed mutual funds — the majority of what you'll find in a 401(k). Index mutual funds (Vanguard, Fidelity, etc.) are designed to match the market, not beat it, and typically carry much lower fees as a result. The expense ratio benchmarks I gave apply to both, but the reason fees matter most applies to actively managed funds.