When Assessing Investment Advice, Consider the Source
It can be very difficult to separate the good advice from the questionable and the questionable from the downright irresponsible. Unfortunately, good advice doesn’t always walk around wearing a sign, but there are some red flags to help you avoid...
Career Advice From ‘The Most Interesting Man In The World’
I love uncovering tidbits about our financial lives in generally nonfinancial books, music, movies and even television commercials. You’ve no doubt seen the commercials for the Mexican beer Dos Equis, in which a nameless, well-dressed, bearded man only described as “The...
Investing Lessons From the Donald Sterling Saga
According to the Law Blog on The Wall Street Journal website, controversial Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling has retained Maxwell Blecher, a highly respected Los Angeles antitrust lawyer in his fight against the NBA. (Full disclosure: I have enjoyed a personal and professional...
The Potential Problem Looming in Your Retirement Portfolio
There is a potential problem looming in your retirement portfolio. Unfortunately, there is little you can do about its cause because it resides in the deep recesses of your brain. As we age, the likelihood that many of us will...
Learn Investing Tips From Property Transfers
Sometimes, valuable insights about investing can be derived from unlikely sources. According to published reports, the largest home purchase in U.S. history recently closed. The property is an 18-acre estate located in East Hampton, N.Y. The purchase price was an astounding...
It’s a Must-Have Book, Even if You Never Read It
I confess that for a stretch of time, I convinced myself that having The Economist lying around would make me smarter, even if I never picked it up. Just by being in the same room, I’d somehow learn by osmosis...
Sharp Practices Can Hurt Your Returns
I’d like to share with you a quick primer on fraud. You can engage in fraud by intentionally misrepresenting a “material fact,” knowing it is false and that the person to whom it is made will rely on it. If...
Factor Tilts Of ‘Larry Portfolio’
In a Dec. 23, 2011 article, New York Times columnist Ron Lieber wrote about my personal investment strategy, which can be described as a low-beta/high-tilt (to small and value stocks) portfolio. I want to circle back to it to illuminate...
Small Value Funds Aren’t Equal
Vanguard is clearly the leading provider of index fund products. Dimensional Fund Advisors is also the clear leader in its “space,” managing about $350 billion in assets in what we might call structured asset class portfolios. (Full disclosure: My firm...
Commodities Can Diversify Risk
The 2006 publication of Gary Gorton’s and K. Geert Rouwenhorst’s study “Facts and Fantasies about Commodity Futures” spurred an increase in the interest of using the asset class of commodities to enhance the performance of financial portfolios. In fact, commodity...
