There’s a lot of buzz in the investment world about Bitcoin—and cryptocurrencies in general. Is it an investment? A real medium of exchange? Some of this interest undoubtedly comes from the fact that, in 2009, Bitcoins were selling for eight cents a coin. At the peak earlier this year, one of those coins was trading at $65,000.

I recently issued a message to Conservatory Members about equity markets in a gradually rising interest rate environment. Today I will address bonds, which are commonly considered poor investments when rates are on the rise.

We tend to pay an awful lot of attention to investment returns. Mostly, I suppose, because they are in our faces all the time. Turn on the television, listen to the radio, pick-up the newspaper, even our smart phones have applications to keep us continuously abreast of the latest valuation placed by Wall Street traders on a basket of thirty stocks we know as the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA). But what does today's valuation have to do with our lives, and should it make or break our day?