25 Jun 2026 Overrated/Underrated

The pure products of America  
go crazy— 

When William Carlos Williams opened his poem To Elsie with the above, he did not apparently have dividend stocks in mind, but a poem can be whatever the reader makes of it. So let’s play a game of overrated/underrated: American financial ideals edition. 

Overrated: 

• Dividend stock “strategies”. There is a whole subset of American investors who love high dividend yielding stocks. I’m not sure what the origin story for this love is, other than the enticement of a regular check in the mail. But it is important to realize that the reason companies pay a dividend to their common stockholders is because company management don’t believe they have anything better to do with that money. So high dividend-paying companies perennially underperform the broader market—often by large margins—because what else are they gonna do? Instead of investing the cash in their own product or service, they give it back to investors with what ought to be a sheepish shrug of the shoulders. Total return matters! 
• Tax deferral. See my last blog. 
• The bigger house next door. An obsession with the larger house we don’t own is probably analogous to smoking cigarettes when it comes to financial comorbidities: Under-saving, lower career flexibility, a bill of goods on the happiness front. Sometimes it is good to get a bigger house, but too often house-discontentment leads to house-obsession which leads to stretching too far for something a house could never deliver on in the first place! 
• “I researched this stock”. American independence is a beautiful thing. The spirit of can-do is a delight, and I am excited to celebrate the 4^th next week. But you did not research the stock with anything approaching the depth you would need to for the research to matter. It is difficult to convey just how little you know about that stock relative to the institutional capital and broader market forces you are trading against. Closely related to this one is the adverse selection game of “I was approached by this really great opportunity to invest in a private fund.” 

Underrated: 

• Liquidity. Investing in liquid securities, having ready access to cash, and just general flexibility to act on opportunities and stay the course through challenging times—tremendously underrated! 
• The low cost and high availability of a diversified portfolio. It’s so easy to take this one for granted, but it wasn’t all that long ago that public markets were significantly more opaque and more expensive for the average person to invest in than they are now. Jack Bogle started the trend toward low-cost investing, and the trend has only accelerated toward zero since then. On top of that, markets are more transparent than ever. It has never been easier to harness the market returns of economies around the world for your own benefit. 
• Working. Retirement is real and important, especially as life expectancies have increased, but I also want to say that work in general is underrated. A life of only leisure is a recipe for unhappiness, and finding work that is a good match to your skills can be one of the most gratifying journeys available to you.  
• Courage. America is a country of immigrants, and immigration is an exercise in courage. Courage is underrated! It takes courage to invest in uncertain times; it takes courage to make a career change; it takes courage to look at your life and say “I have more than enough—how can my surplus be used for others?” And courage is always easier when you’re not alone. 

What about you? What’s on your list of overrated/underrated? Send us a note and let us know. 

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