Sometimes our financial lives get too complex, and we lose the forest for the trees. Let's step back, take a breath, and refresh our brains with a 101 class on the basics of investing. We can talk about it more below in June's financial tip of the month.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Save Thousands on Student Loans + Get a WCI Course Free – Skip the hours of research and stress with a consult and personalized plan from Student Loan Advice. The average client saves $160,000 on their student loans AND if you schedule a consult by June 30th (does not need to occur by that date) you will get our Continuing Financial Education Course ($789 value) FREE after you meet. Book Your Loan Consultation Today

Apply to Speak at WCICON26 – Join a world-class speaking team and make a difference in the financial lives and well-being of the White Coat Investor community. Be a part of the Physician Wellness & Financial Literacy Conference experience in Las Vegas, Nevada, March 25-28, 2026. Applications are open until June 15th. Apply to Speak

WCI Medical School Scholarship – The application is now open until August 31st! We're looking for volunteers to judge submissions and welcome reader donations. Over $70,000 in cash and prizes awaits the 10 grand prize winners. See All Scholarship Details

A huge thank you to all scholarship sponsors!

Platinum Level Sponsors ($8,000 or more):

The White Coat Investor, LLC
Matthew Wiggins (Doc Insure LLC) – Disability and Life Insurance
Splash Financial – Student Loan Refinancing and HELOC loans

Gold Level Sponsors ($1,500 or more):

Chad Chubb (WealthKeel LLC) – Financial Advising
Jon Appino (Contract Diagnostics) – Contract Review, Negotiation and Compensation Analysis
Josh Mettle (Neo Home Loans) – Physician Mortgage Loans
Dustin Peltier (Well-Being Wealth Strategies) – Disability and Life Insurance
Incrowd – Medical Surveys

MARKET UPDATE

Data sources: Morningstar and SPGlobal

With as topsy-turvy as the stock market has been so far this year (remember that Q1 of 2025 was the worst-performing quarter by the S&P 500 since 2022 and, at one point, the S&P was down 17% on the year), US stocks are back in the black YTD. Just barely, of course. But hey, a positive number is a positive for your portfolio.
This is the first time in the past six months that US stocks have beaten international stocks. But for the year, international is still pummeling domestic. All those investors who have been waiting for years for their global holdings to outpace American stocks, it's still unclear whether 2025 will begin that turnaround.
The disappointing performance of bonds in May shows that the mood around the US economy is still uncertain. The fact that Moody's recently downgraded the US credit rating probably didn't help.
If you own Bitcoin, you've got to be feeling amazing. The Trump administration said it wants to create a Bitcoin Treasury with about $2.3 billion worth of crypto, and according to Morning Brew, there are now 114 public companies that own Bitcoin (a 28% increase from the beginning of April). How much momentum does Bitcoin have? In April, it was at about $75,000. In May, it crossed the $110,000 threshold.

REAL ESTATE OPPORTUNITIES

Wellings Capital – Helping accredited investors passively grow and protect their wealth with a diversified portfolio of carefully vetted recession-resistant commercial assets, such as self-storage, mobile home parks, and RV parks. Accepting new investors with a $50,000 minimum.

MLG Capital – Founded in 1987, MLG Capital invests via a series of funds that target both geographic and asset-class diversification. MLG Capital has consistently delivered attractive, tax-efficient returns throughout its 35-year track record of success. The MLG Private Fund VI is now open for investment.

Please consider these introductions and be sure to do your due diligence prior to investing in any real estate investment opportunity.

FINANCE FUNDAMENTALS

Financial Priorities for New Attendings

	Disability Insurance One in four doctors get disabled. Insure your greatest asset with Disability Insurance.
	Student Loan Management Plan If you are not going for PSLF and are in a typical loan situation owing less than 1.5X your gross income, then it's time to refinance your student loans.
	Emergency Fund Boost your emergency fund to 3-6 months of expenses before expanding your lifestyle.
	Retirement Accounts Get your employer match, then max out your HSA.
	High-Interest Debt Wipe out high-interest debt for a guaranteed return.
For details on financial priorities for new attendings, read more here.

BEST OF THE MONTH

Best of WCI

The Importance of Real Partners – Last summer, Jim suffered serious injuries after a long fall while climbing in the Tetons. Here's who he needed to count on afterward.
I've Been Semi-Retired for a Quarter Decade: Do We Have Enough Money? Am I Bored? Are We Happy? – An update on WCI columnist Anthony Ellis' mostly retired life and finances.
How Much Money Do Doctors Make a Year? Salaries Have Yet Another Disappointingly Small Increase – Our annual update on physician salaries and whether they think they're being paid fairly.
From Free Resident Meals to $750,000: Unleashing the Power of Behavioral Economics – Here's how one guest writer saved up nearly $1 million before collecting his first attending paycheck.
Simplify, Simplify, Simplify – Real-Life Dilemmas – Our financial lives become so complicated over the years that we waste a lot of our time (and possibly a lot of our money) dealing with them. The solution: get rid of complexity.
Financial Lessons from My Family's Experience with Long-Term Care Insurance – WCI columnist Adam Safdi has gone 'round and 'round with his dad's LTCI company. Here's what he's learned.
13 Ways to Screw Up Tax-Loss Harvesting – As this topsy-turvy financial landscape continues deeper into 2025, here's what not to do if you're TLHing.
Flourishing at Work: What Physicians Get Wrong About Career Happiness – New WCI columnist Josh Daily writes about what actually leads to happiness at work.
How to Move Up to the Next Level and Buy a Multi-Million Dollar Home – An emailer asked about the best way to buy a $3 million home without selling their current home. Here are seven options to think about.
WCI Travel Club: Memorable Trips to Chile, Lake Powell, and the Oregon Wine Country – Another edition of the WCI Travel Club, where readers write about their worldly adventures and what they learned from them. Interested in telling your own story? Contact us at content@whitecoatinvestor.com.
How to Build a Reasonable Long-Term Investment Portfolio – This is a good back-to-basics piece from Dr. Jim Dahle.

New Podcast Episodes

Be sure to check out The White Coat Investor Podcast if you haven't yet. 30,000 to 40,000 are listening to every episode. If you'd like to leave a question to be answered on the podcast, record it here.

#421 – Finding Joy in Your Work with Dr. Cory Fawcett (Sponsored by SoFi)
#420 – Due Diligence on Real Estate Deals (Sponsored by SoFi)
#419 – Getting to Know Jim: His Past, Present, and Future Relationship with Money (Sponsored by SoFi)
#418 – Get Your Tax Bill Down (Sponsored by SoFi)
#417 – Get Rich Fast as a Millionaire with Roth Conversions (Sponsored by Laurel Road)

The Milestones to Millionaire Podcast has short episodes celebrating your accomplishments.

#224 – CRNA Hits Half a Million Dollars and Finance 101: Investing Cash (Sponsored by Doc2Doc)
#223 – ER Doc Gets His Finances in Order and Finance 101: Donor Advised Funds (Sponsored by Bob Bhayani at Protuity)
#222 – Engineer and Medical Student Hit Half Million Dollar Net Worth and Finance 101: Different Ways to Pay for Medical School (Sponsored by Locumstory)
#221 – Pharmacist Builds a Real Estate Empire and Punches Out in 10 Years and Finance 101: 529s (Sponsored by Locumstory)

Dr. Dahle's Guest Podcast Appearances

From Broke to Financially Bulletproof – The Short Coat Podcast from students at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine
How Wealth Shifts Our Mindset and Priorities – Boldin Your Money Podcast with Steve Chen, CEO of Boldin financial planning software

Best of the Web

Every month we recommend (about) 10 articles from across the web. Thank you to those who send us suggested articles.

Judge Allows Bankrupt Steward to Keep Employee Retirement Funds – Jim is watching this case involving his former hospital owner very closely as it may turn out to be the first case he knows of where docs lose deferred compensation (like non-governmental 457(b) or 409(a)) accounts. He has warned about this risk for years, but it has mostly been theoretical in the past.
Your Money Market Fund Is Ripping You Off – Behind the WSJ paywall, the bottom line is that if your cash isn't at Vanguard, you need to pay at least a little attention to your money market fund to make sure you're being paid fairly. Expense ratios matter, but really you can tell most of what you want to know just from the yield.
Mortality Among US Physicians and Other Health Care Workers – Are you more likely to die young as a physician or less likely? Does your gender matter? JAMA decides to figure it out.
The Disappearing Tail of Medical Malpractice Insurance – Even if your employer is supposed to pay for the tail, you may still get hung out to dry and have to pay for your own if the employer goes under. One more benefit of an occurrence policy over a claims-made one.
ACEP Pushes Back on Efforts to Cut Student Loan Forgiveness – The time to advocate is now if you're a fan of the taxpayer paying for your medical school, although current borrowers are likely to be grandfathered in. Certainly, there are docs that are more likely to take some jobs when a program like PSLF is available for working there. "The Big Beautiful Bill" in Congress now is likely to make some student loan changes. Stay tuned to the blog and podcast for updates when/if it passes.
When Does Housing Become THE Issue – Ben Carlson opines on something Jim has been thinking about for a long time. We used to help our kids with their education. Now it looks like helping them into a house is probably going to be more important. The median age of first-time homebuyers has gone up 10 years since I got out of high school. It turns out that generational wealth now is just owning your home.
50 Years of the Vanguard Experiment – Perfect? No. Industry changing? Absolutely. It's been 50 years now, and Allan Roth gives us a recap.
How Much Have Social Security Claiming Ages Increased? – The word is out, and more people are delaying (as they should).
The Value of a Second Opinion – By Mike Piper. A second opinion probably matters even more for your money than your health because most doctors are competent and well-meaning and most "financial advisors" are not. That's actually not what the article is about, though. It's about how the markets are better at pricing securities than you are. Why not get thousands of opinions instead of just one?
Why Most Financial Planners Don't Offer Very Short Engagements – Another great Piper article discussing something Jim has spent a lot of time thinking about in the last year as he has tried to find advice solutions for "validators."

TIP OF THE MONTH

By Dr. Jim Dahle,
WCI Founder

It is critical to understand the basics of investing. At its essence, investing is foregoing spending (or giving) now in order to spend (or give) more later.

Risk and return are related, but higher risk in no way guarantees a higher return, even in the long run. In fact, some risks (like picking individual stocks) are known to be uncompensated since they can be diversified away. There are four major types of investments.

The first type, which I personally avoid completely, is the speculative investment. A speculative investment produces no earnings, dividends, rents, or interest. Its return is 100% reliant on somebody paying you more for it later than you paid for it now. Examples include cryptoassets like Bitcoin, precious metals like gold, empty land, commodities, art, and collectible autos.

The next type of investment, considered a risky investment, has both variable principal and a variable yield. Yield is the income that an investment actually pays you. It may come in the form of rents for real estate, earnings (some of which may be paid out as dividends) for stocks, and interest for bonds and cash investments. Stocks and real estate are riskier investments than bonds and cash because BOTH the principal value AND the yield are variable. Since the risk is higher, the return should, at least theoretically, be higher in the long term.

The third type of investment is a bond, or loan to a person, business, government, or other entity. With a bond—at least a high-quality bond—the yield is fixed and the principal varies (primarily based on interest rates, at least until maturity in the case of individual bonds). Since only one aspect is variable, these are less risky investments than stocks and real estate.

The final type of investment is cash. With cash, the yield varies, but the principal does not. Cash is an investment that is used when the return OF your principal matters more than the return ON your principal. Examples of good uses for cash include day-to-day spending accounts, emergency funds, your next quarterly estimated tax payment, and savings for a house you're buying next year.

Typical intelligent cash investments include high-yield savings accounts (when the yield is higher and/or FDIC insurance is important to you) or, more commonly, money market funds. Right now, my high-yield savings account at Ally Bank yields an APY of 3.6%. So, most of our cash is kept at Vanguard in money market funds. Options there currently include the federal money market fund (4.20% yield), the Treasury money market fund (a state tax-free yield of 4.23%), and the municipal money market fund (a federal tax-free yield of 2.68%). Most people simply use their marginal tax rates to calculate which fund is best for them, but note that this varies over time. Vanguard tends to offer slightly higher yields than Schwab or Fidelity, and more importantly, uses these money market funds as their default "sweep account," whereas Schwab, in particular, uses lower-yielding accounts to generate income . . . for the firm.

Reaching for yield is when you take on a little bit of principal risk to try to get a little higher yield on the money. For example, some people might buy very short-term Treasury bills, certificates of deposit, or even a short-term bond mutual fund or ETF so they can earn a little more interest. This works fine if you don't need the money until the bill, bond, or CD matures. But if you do, you could lose a little bit of money. Only you can decide if the additional return is worth the additional risk.

You likely need risky assets in your portfolio to generate a return high enough to reach your financial goals, especially since you need to beat inflation along the way. If you're like most people, you need your money to do at least some of the heavy lifting along the way because you're not willing to save enough of your income (like 50% for 30 years) to reach your goals with less risky investments.

Bonds reduce the volatility of the portfolio (making it easier to tolerate) and often perform much better than stocks and real estate in economic downturns. There have even been historical times when bonds have outperformed stocks for very long time periods. Cash is used when principal value is important, and most of us own at least a little bit of cash.

The mixture of all of these different types of investments is called an asset allocation, and it turns out that your chosen asset allocation has a much larger effect on your investing returns, at least long term, than which individual investments you actually choose. Without a basic understanding of investing, it's easy to get lost in all the details and miss the forest for the trees as you look at individual investments.

The White Coat Investor