Barber Life Academy · Money
Updated Oct 2026Charlie Bilello's “20 Rules for Markets and Investing” is a talk every barber should see. We teach all 20 for the chair, with his numbers updated through October 2026.
Education, not personal financial advice. No stock or coin in this lesson is a buy. For your own plan, talk to a fee-only fiduciary.
Market tape · ▲ up · ▼ down · ● other · each figure dated · sources on slide 10
The talk · Why barbers
Watch first · 20 rules · 45+ minBilello walks through 20 rules he learned the hard way. Watch it once start to finish, or tap a rule number to jump right to it. Every slide after this one brings his examples up to October 2026.
Charlie Bilello · 20 Rules for Markets and Investing
The video loads from YouTube in privacy-enhanced mode, only after you tap. Bilello's companion post went up Oct 7, 2024; rule names used as headings in this lesson are his.
Charlie Bilello is Chief Market Strategist at Creative Planning, a U.S. wealth-management firm. He's a CMT and holds a CPA certificate.
Title and bio: Creative Planning CONNECT26 speaker page, Sept 2026. Checked Oct 21, 2026.
Here's what I tell my students: nobody is coming to save for you. Not the shop. Not a boss. You.
Education, not personal financial advice. For your situation, sit down with a fee-only fiduciary, ideally a CFP® professional.
Rules 1–3 · Mindset before markets
Rule names: Charlie Bilello▲ 74 of 100 one-year stretches were up. ▼ 26 were down.
Calendar-year windows of S&P 500 total return, 1926–2025, from Slickcharts annual data (our math). 1-day figure: Bilello, as of 2024. The worst 20-year stretch (1929–48) still grew about 3% a year. Past results don’t guarantee future ones.
No flags tapped yet.Still verify the person and the product before a dollar moves.
Americans reported losing $7.9 billion to investment scams in 2025, the biggest loss category (FTC, Mar 2026). FBI IC3 counted $7.2B in crypto investment fraud for 2025. Flags come from SEC Investor.gov (Ponzi red flags), FINRA and FBI IC3 warnings, and SEC case LR-26453 (Dec 2025).
Here's what I tell my students: you don't need to beat the market. The guy trading on his phone between cuts usually loses to the guy who just holds.
Barber & Odean, “Trading Is Hazardous to Your Wealth,” Journal of Finance (2000): 66,465 households, 1991–96. Overconfidence drives the trading.
Rules 4–6 · Crashes, forecasts, risk
Updated through Oct 2026Fastest bear market on record. ▲ New high Aug 18, 2020, six months after the peak.
Tariff shock, then a 9.5% one-day jump on Apr 9. ▲ New high Jun 27, 2025.
U.S.–Iran conflict from Feb 28 sent oil up. ▲ New high Apr 15, 2026.
A virus, a tariff fight, a war. Nobody called any of them. Your plan has to survive the drop you can't see coming.
AP/PBS (Aug 18, 2020); S&P DJI (Apr 8, 2025 low of 4,982.77); AP (Apr 9, 2025); NPR (Jun 27, 2025); Reuters and Euronews (Apr 15–16, 2026).
In Feb 2025, the median Wall Street target for the S&P 500 at year-end was 6,500. By May, after the tariff drop, many big firms cut theirs to 5,300–5,900. Where did it actually finish 2025?
Reuters poll (Feb 26, 2025); Reuters factbox (May 9, 2025); S&P DJI year-end 2025.
Before taxes on interest. Future inflation is unknown; these rates are assumptions you pick.
Cash is for your emergency fund and next month's rent. Long-term money has to grow faster than prices, and that means owning stocks and living with the swings. In 2022 U.S. stocks fell 18% and bonds fell 13% in the same year. Risk is the price of the return.
BLS CPI: 2.7% for 2025, 3.7% for the 12 months to Sep 2026. FDIC national savings rate 0.38% (Oct 2026, via FRED). Top high-yield savings about 4.3% (NerdWallet, Oct 21, 2026; 5% promos have strings). 2022: S&P 500 −18.1% (Slickcharts), U.S. Aggregate bonds −13.0%.
Rules 7, 12, 18 · Own the whole market
Research updated Mar 2026These 48 tiles stand in for all 29,754 U.S. stocks from 1926 to 2025, about 620 real stocks per tile. Pick 5 and see what you'd have owned.
Tap any tile to make your first pick.
Bessembinder, “One Hundred Years in the U.S. Stock Markets” (Mar 2026): 1926–2025, 29,754 stocks; 46 created half of all net wealth, the top 3.72% created all of it, and about 59% did worse than T-bills. Tiles are scaled to those shares.
companies out of 29,754 made half of all the stock market's net wealth from 1926 to 2025. Bilello's 2024 version said 72 of about 28,000.
of large-cap fund managers trailed the S&P 500 over 20 years (90% over 15, 86% over 10). SPIVA U.S., year-end 2025.
Simplest move: one low-cost target-date index fund picked by the year you'll retire. It holds U.S. stocks, international stocks and bonds, and gets safer as you age. Set it, automate it, leave it.
Three funds, the whole world: a total U.S. stock market index fund, a total international stock index fund and a total U.S. bond market index fund. The split above is an Example, not a recommendation; your mix depends on your age and nerves.
Bilello (2024); Slickcharts annual returns (our math for 2000–09); Yahoo Finance, Feb 3, 2026 (MSCI EAFE 2025).
Here's what I tell my students: you can't pick the next superstar any better than you can pick the next client who'll tip $50. So own all of them. One low-cost index fund does that for you.
Rules 8–10 · The Fed, the shocks, the hype
Fed data through Oct 21, 2026You don't need a Fed opinion to build wealth. Bilello found stocks rose about 35% from the first hike in 2022 to the first cut in 2024 (as of 2024). Keep buying on schedule, whatever the Fed does.
Federal Reserve: rate history and statements (Sep 16, 2026), Warsh oath (May 22, 2026). BLS: CPI 3.4% (12 months to Aug 2026). Slickcharts: S&P 500 total returns, 2026 through Oct 20.
Nikkei's worst day since 1987, its biggest point drop ever. Over two days: about −17.5%.
After falling about 12% in four days on tariff news, the S&P 500 had one of its best days since World War II.
Topped $126,000 in October 2025, then fell below $60,000 by June 2026.
Seven giant tech stocks made up about 35% of the S&P 500's value. A risk to know about, not a call.
Textbook math says days like these almost never happen. They happen all the time. You can't dodge them, so build a plan that doesn't need to.
Never invest money you'll need in the next few years, like rent, taxes or a chair deposit. That's how a wild week turns into a forced sale.
CNBC Africa (Aug 5, 2024); Bilello (2-day figure, 2024); AP via ABC News (Apr 9, 2025); AP via Yahoo (May 16, 2025); Bloomberg (Nov 17, 2025); Aletihad, agencies (Jun 6, 2026); S&P DJI (Dec 2025: “Magnificent 7” at 34.9%).
…
Rule 11 · The barber's superpower
2026 IRS limits“If you spend everything you make, there's nothing left to invest.”
Monthly deposits, monthly compounding, no taxes or fees. Returns are assumptions, never promises. The savings lever is the one you control.
A common first account for barbers. You put in after-tax money; qualified withdrawals in retirement come out tax-free. You need earned income: booth-rent profit, commission and W-2 pay all count.
Income limits for 2026: the Roth phases out at $153,000–$168,000 (single) and $242,000–$252,000 (married filing jointly). Source: IRS, Nov 13, 2025.
Easy for booth renters. Simple paperwork, and you don't have to contribute every year, so a slow year is covered. For the self-employed, “pay” means net profit minus half your self-employment tax, and the 25% rate shrinks to 20% of that number. You can open and fund it as late as your tax-filing deadline, extensions included.
Sources: IRS SEP contribution limits page; IRS SEP FAQs; IRS Pub. 560 rate table for the self-employed. Have a CPA or enrolled agent run your number.
The max-saver account. For a barber with no employees (a spouse can join). You wear two hats: defer up to $24,500 as the employee, then add up to 20% of net self-employment earnings as the employer. Some plans offer a Roth option.
Once the plan holds $250,000 or more, you file Form 5500-EZ each year. Sources: IRS newsroom (Nov 13, 2025); IRS one-participant 401(k) page; IRS SEP limits page ($72,000).
Trump Accounts, created by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The money must sit in U.S. stock index funds, and withdrawals generally wait until 18. An employer can add up to $2,500 a year, which counts toward the $5,000. Open one with IRS Form 4547 or at trumpaccounts.gov.
Fund your own retirement first; your kids can borrow for school, but nobody lends for retirement. Sources: IRS IR-2025-117 (Dec 2, 2025); IR-2026-42 (Mar 31, 2026).
W-2 commission barber? You can still open a Roth IRA. A SEP or Solo 401(k) needs self-employment income.
Rules 13–14 · Suffer well, don't interrupt
Actual monthly returns through Sep 2026Monthly S&P 500 total returns (SPY-based, ChartRow), Jan 2020–Sep 2026; they compound to within 0.2% of each year's official total. Cash earns 0% while you wait, to keep it simple.
2025 had a 19% drop and still finished up 17.9%. In 2026, a 9% dip and still up 13.7% through Oct 20. Bilello found U.S. stocks spent over 90% of the time since 1928 below a prior high (as of 2024).
Warren Buffett was worth about $12 billion when he turned 65 in 1995. By Sept 2026: about $145 billion, so over 90% came after 65, even after giving away $60 billion-plus. He handed the CEO job to Greg Abel on Jan 1, 2026 and stepped down as chairman on Sep 18, 2026, at 96.
Here's what I tell my students: write your crash rule now, while you're calm. Mine for you: “When stocks drop, my automatic deposit keeps going.” Selling locks in the loss. Sitting out misses the rebound.
Bilello (2024); Entrepreneur, citing Barron's (Aug 2025); CNN, citing Bloomberg (Sep 18, 2026); AP (Sep 18, 2026); Nasdaq (Abel CEO). Bilello put the after-65 share at 98%; sources differ on method, but all say the vast majority.
Rules 15, 16, 17, 19 · Filter, extremes, ownership, emotions
Game + quizBusinessWeek's “Death of Equities” cover ran in Aug 1979. From 1980 to 1999 the S&P 500 grew about 18% a year with dividends. Headlines sell fear; they don't run your plan.
Watch rule 15Fear hit an extreme in April 2025 (the VIX “fear gauge” spiked past 60), then the S&P 500 rose 39% from its Apr 8 low by year-end. Extremes snap back, both ways.
Watch rule 16In 7 of the 9 down years for U.S. stocks since 1976, high-grade bonds rose; 2018 was flat and 2022 fell 13%. In 2026 the 10-year Treasury yield topped 5.3%, its highest since 2002. If you can't explain it, you'll sell it at the worst time.
Watch rule 17Fear sells low; greed buys high. Feel the urge? Step away for 48 hours, reread your plan, then decide.
Watch rule 19Bilello (1979 cover); Slickcharts (our math, 1980–99); S&P DJI (VIX 60.13 on Apr 7, 2025; +38.65% from Apr 8 low); Slickcharts + Bloomberg U.S. Aggregate annual returns via UpMyInterest; Bloomberg Government (10-yr yield highest since 2002, Oct 2026).
Rule 16: Bitcoin topped $126,000 in October 2025. Where was it by June 2026?
Rule 17: In 2022 U.S. stocks fell 18%. What did the broad U.S. bond index do?
Rule 19: Stocks drop 10% in a week and the group chat is panicking. What's your first move?
Rule 20 · Your move
Action plan · sources0 / 8 moves done
“No amount of money can buy the past.”
You plan your money. Plan your time too. Automate the saving so the hours you spend away from the chair go to the people you're doing it for.
Education, not personal financial advice. Find a CFP® professional at LetsMakeAPlan.org and ask: “Are you a fiduciary at all times, and are you fee-only?” Taxes on these accounts: ask a CPA or enrolled agent.
Education, not personal financial advice. The talk and post are Charlie Bilello's copyrighted work; this lesson paraphrases his ideas, uses his 20 rule names as headings with credit, and quotes him three times. All charts are drawn from the data below. 2024 figures marked “Bilello” are his; everything else was re-checked for 2025–2026.