The Latest from Spartan Planning

What a Streak?! “The map is not the territory.” – Alfred Korzybski Markets tend to test discipline in different ways over time. Periods of rapid change make investors crave adaptability, while periods of persistence make them want patience. Neither suggests something...

2025 Wrapped From Spartan Planning Group “I think it is much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong.” – Richard Feynman When uncertainty rises, investors often default to recent experience or familiar narratives, even when those...

When Sentiment is Screaming, Discipline is a Differentiator “The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.” – Hans Hofmann The past few years have shown how quickly market regimes can shift — from a long stretch of falling...

Don’t Get Your Popcorn, There’s Little Drama in this Data  “Enthusiasm is common. Endurance is rare.” – Angela Duckworth Markets have stayed calm as we enter the final stretch of the year. Stocks are steady, volatility is low, and bonds have regained momentum — a...

Steady. But Ready. “We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.” – Seneca September has historically been a market weak spot, yet it has defied expectations. Instead of stumbling, stocks are pushing to new highs, volatility remains muted, and the seasonal...

Compounding Requires Time, Stability, Patience “The big money is not in the buying and the selling but in the waiting.” – Charlie Munger Quiet markets can feel uneventful but oftentimes they’re when the real work of investing takes place. Compounding isn’t flashy. It...

Restraint (Not Reaction) Can Be The Clearest Expression of Discipline “Don’t just do something — sit there.” – Sylvia Boorstein One of the hardest things in investing is doing nothing — not out of neglect, but on purpose. At Spartan Planning Group, we believe in...

Forecasts Have Missed the Mark, Our Discipline Has Not “Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.” – Voltaire Every June, we find ourselves doing the same thing: reviewing the first half of the year and comparing reality to expectations. Not because...

Investment Systems Can Do Almost Anything. But Not Everything. “The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.” – Michael Porter One of the biggest misconceptions in investing is that the best system is the one that does everything. In reality, the strongest...

Simplicity Is a Good Defense Against Uncertainty “The art of life lies in a constant readjustment to our surroundings.” – Kakuzō Okakura In investing, uncertainty isn’t a bug — it’s a feature.  No matter how much data we gather or how many historical patterns we...