An Eye to the Past Can Help Guide the Future
Over time, we’ve come to accept the concept that knowledge is power. In theory, when we have more knowledge, we can make better decisions. But for many of us, there can be a disconnect between knowing something and acting wisely...
The 3 Keys to Surviving Major Life Transitions
You might think that the most important work a financial advisor can do is related to allocating a client’s investment portfolio, or perhaps helping secure a timely insurance policy or drafting the optimal estate plan. In fact, their most important...
Small Value Vs Midcap Value
My column from July 14 on the persistence of the small-value premium resulted in some interesting discussions on the subject. I thought it would be informative to share one of them. One reader pointed out that in the past 20 years, midcap...
Active Funds Fail Again & Again
The evidence is overwhelming that most actively managed funds underperform their appropriate benchmarks, especially after taxes. However, not all actively managed funds underperform, just a large majority of them. Those who believe in active management as the winning strategy believe they can...
Enough With The Hedge Fund Hype
The first half of this year again brought hedge funds little relief from their historically poor performance. Hedge funds began 2014 coming off their fifth-straight year of trailing U.S. stocks by some significant margins. And based on data through June 30, it...
Not All Value Metrics Are Equal
The metric most commonly used to categorize value stocks and to construct portfolios is the one employed by the Fama-French three-factor model—book-to-market (BtM) ratio. Russell Indexes only uses BtM to determine value as well. However, other metrics also show a...
Will retiring boomers spark a stock bust?
As if equity investors didn’t already have enough to worry about, one of the new concerns getting a lot of attention recently is that the baby boomer cohort — now starting to retire — will fund their retirement by selling...
How can you effectively harvest tax losses in bonds
Q: How can you effectively harvest tax losses in bonds? A: The prospect of higher interest rates scares a lot of investors as that can mean lower bond prices and the potential for losses. You can, however, take advantage of these...
