The Wrong Place and Time to Have a Money Conversation
A few weeks ago, I got home late after a long trip. I’d been traveling a lot recently and didn’t sleep well that night. The next morning, I woke up and felt like I’d been hit by a truck. Emotionally,...
Poor Active Performance Persists
The midyear 2015 Standard & Poor’s Indices Versus Active (SPIVA) persistence scorecard for U.S. equity markets provides yet another example of why—at least when it comes to the overall results of active management relative to their appropriate benchmarks—the past can,...
What Mountain Climbing Can Teach You About Business
When we think of mountain climbing, we tend to think of Mount Everest and big groups of people climbing in long lines. Armies of Sherpas create base camps and ferry supplies and gear up and down the mountain. Miles of...
Gurus Trip Over Bond/Stock Correlation
A good number of Wall Street “gurus” have, for quite some time now, been loudly and repeatedly warning investors that bond yields will soar. That, they caution, will in turn lead to falling stock prices. Unfortunately, this bit of “conventional...
Midyear Checkup: A Time to Adapt
Where am I now? Where do I want to go from here? At the start of each year, many of us make it a habit to ask ourselves the two above questions. The answers help us map out a strategy,...
Focus on the Opportunities, Not the Shoals
More than a decade ago, I learned how to kayak. I practiced in the pool a few times before deciding to test my skills on the river. For one of my first trips, my wife and I traveled to the...
Budgeting Guide for the Rich
“You don’t really do this stuff—do you?” The question came from a major network anchor after the camera stopped rolling. The topic was budgeting. He certainly isn’t obtuse, and he wasn’t being patronizing or condescending. It was a legitimate question...
A Close Look At Neuberger Funds
In this installment of our continuing series on the ability of actively managed fund families to generate alpha, we’ll evaluate the recent performance of equity funds managed by Neuberger Berman to determine if the firm adds value for its investors....
Mythical Emerging Market Returns
The headline of a May article in Investment News, authored by senior columnist Jeff Benjamin, declares: “When investing in emerging-markets economies, stock picking beats indexed exposure.” As regular readers of my work will most likely not be shocked to discover,...
The Battle Over the DOL’s Fiduciary Rule Gets Dirty
The battle over a rule proposed by the U.S. Department of Labor, which would require retirement plan advisors to be fiduciaries to plan participants, has descended to a new low. The securities industry lobby has been earning its keep, persuading...
