Ask a Wall Street Legend Your Burning Questions

I know most of you love the Friday Q&A issues...

And honestly, I love answering your questions as much as you love sending them in.

It's one of the reasons why, since I became CEO of our parent company, MarketWise, I've regularly held tea times. It's an hour when anyone in the company can sit with me and ask questions.

Questions from readers like you and from my employees help me focus on the things people really care about – not what I might assume they care about. That means I can empower you to take control of your health and wealth in a way that's meaningful to you.

And I'm not the only one who wants to empower folks through knowledge...

My friend Marc Chaikin spent 50 years on Wall Street. In that time, he created proprietary stock indicators – like the industry-standard "Chaikin Money Flow" – that are used by the biggest hedge funds, investment banks, and other institutional traders all over the world today.

Then, after seeing the fallout from the great financial crisis and that individual investors were often the ones who lost the most, Marc decided to help teach normal folks how to do as well as the "pros" on Wall Street. He founded Chaikin Analytics and developed his Power Gauge system to give the "little guys" a fighting chance.

And next week, he's going one step further... On Tuesday, August 26 at 10 a.m. Eastern time, Marc is sitting down for his first-ever "Ask Me Anything." This is a chance for you to ask a legendary investor your questions, whether you want to hear about tariffs, artificial intelligence, cryptocurrency, nuclear energy, or interest rates.

To submit your question – and reserve your spot for this free event – click here.

As always, keep sending your comments, questions, and topic suggestions to feedback@healthandwealthbulletin.com. My team and I read every e-mail.

Cultivate Your Garden... and Your Investments

Today, we're doing something a little different...

Because our mailbag received so much feedback on our gardening issue, we'll be featuring some of your tips in lieu of our usual Q&A.

For starters, Retirement Millionaire subscriber W.B. recommends the "square foot" gardening method as a way to save space, time, and money...

Quite a few years back I discovered a method of gardening on PBS. It is called "Square Foot Gardening." This method was developed by Mel Bartholomew. He hosted the 30-minute program in a series of episodes. This method is well adapted for people who do not have lots of area to grow a garden. It can be used in large areas as well. It saves time and money as compared to conventional home gardens.

The series also has a book that is still available. It outlines the whole gardening process from start to finish, such as: locating your garden on your property, amending your soil, seeds and transplant selection, how to plant, when to plant, planting for a continuous harvest, harvesting, and much more.

For my fellow newsletter readers, the bottom line is economy – less work than conventional gardening but still plenty of exercise and a plentiful glorious harvest.

For those of you looking for the best planting medium, reader K.G. swears by this "soil" recipe...

I don't use dirt! Instead, my "soil" is:

• 1/3 compost
• 1/3 peat moss
• 1/3 vermiculite

My garden has never done so well since I got rid of dirt. It's SO easy to turn over the "soil." Weeds come out easy with just a little wiggle. The peat moss holds the right amount of moisture [so] that I only have to water every three days (every two days when our Midwest location gets over 90 degrees Fahrenheit).

Finally, we have veteran gardener O.P. lending a bit of green-thumb wisdom and explaining why budding gardeners should try planting some zucchini...

With minimal effort or knowledge, [zucchini] will rarely fail to produce fruit. Not everyone is a zucchini fan, but [growing] it provides positive results, and shows people that gardening is not impossible. With that confidence, they often go on to try other crops.

O.P. – who's a subscriber to my options-trading Retirement Trader service – continued from there, providing some invaluable insight on how gardening is similar to investing and trading...

I wanted you to be aware that yesterday I made my first entry into the options market, based on your recommendation in Retirement Trader.

The decision to follow that recommendation has a lot in common with my gardening view. Gardening takes patience and hard work of course, but also some trial and error which provides the opportunity to learn from mistakes. With respect to the options [trade], I "replaced" the trial-and-error method by being patient, reading your previous recommendations, following the results, and then reading and considering your recommendation on this stock. I believe it to be an educated decision with minimal risk. That was the "doing the hard work" part...

The same goes for gardening. There is definitely some planning and research required before you just shove the seeds in the ground. But I view my years of gardening and everything I've learned in the same perspective as investing.

Research and planning are required to make educated, minimal risk decisions. My garden does not produce better and better every year. But every year one thing or another does very well. Sometimes a certain plant or plants do not do well, but it is only a portion of the garden, not the entire thing. And in the end, I always end up with something. But it takes patience and commitment as well to take care of the garden, just as it does with one's investment portfolio.

In this way I believe gardening is a great comparison to taking care of investments. If one of my plants gets a disease or is eaten by bugs, I cut it out or get rid of it before it gets worse. And that's a good analogy to a stock or investment position that is doing poorly. Before it affects the whole portfolio, you're better off to get rid of the problem.

I live in northern Alberta, Canada, so obviously my garden will look different than yours. I must choose plants for this climate, otherwise no matter how much research, work and care I put into it, the results will be poor. I'm not going to plant bananas or grapevines – both of which I really like – to try to have my own fruit. It won't work here. The analogy can be made to making uninformed decisions about stocks to purchase. Without doing the research, the results may be quite poor.

The other thing that I must thank you for is the perspective you present on physical health. I'm getting older, and my wife has some serious health issues now. It makes me realize that while it is certainly important (probably more so now than 10 years ago) to wisely manage my investments, it really doesn't mean much if poor health prevents enjoying it. There are no guarantees of course, but looking after one's health is just as important as properly managing assets. My garden provides healthy produce for my wife and I. Wise investment management should do the same for our financial health. And I enjoy gardening from a physical and mental perspective too. There are other hobbies that provide mental benefits to be sure, and I have other interests as well. But gardening truly allows me to see "the fruits of my labor." I take the same approach to investing.

Thank you so much for making investing not only interesting, but presenting it as a necessary life skill. Everyone needs to do the best they can for themselves. Thank you for your honesty and clarity in your work. I just wanted to say that it has made a positive difference in MY LIFE, not just to my investments. Thanks for providing an honest and sincere perspective for ordinary people like me.

What We're Reading...

• Did you miss it? Become a garden gnome to grow your health span and your nest egg.

• Something different: There's a new moon orbiting Uranus.

Here's to our health, wealth, and a great retirement,

Dr. David Eifrig and the Health & Wealth Bulletin Research Team
August 22, 2025