Some Alternatives to Big Banks and Their Record-High Fees
Fees are at an all-time high at the nation’s big banks, while the interest they pay is at an all-time low. Worse yet, evidence recently has come to light of the criminal abuse of a practice common among large banks since the...
Checking In With The ‘Gurudex’
One of my favorite sayings about the market forecasts of so-called experts is from Jason Zweig, financial columnist for The Wall Street Journal: “Whenever some analyst seems to know what he’s talking about, remember that pigs will fly before he’ll...
On the Performance of Long-Serving Active Mutual Fund Managers
Given its importance to so many investors, it’s not surprising that there has been a tremendous amount of research into the performance of actively managed mutual funds. An overwhelming body of evidence has demonstrated that the vast majority of active...
Do Upside and Downside Capture Ratios Predict Mutual Fund Performance?
The importance of actively managed mutual funds in the financial sector has led to substantial research focused on their performance. The overwhelming evidence is that it’s very difficult, if not impossible, to identify ahead of time the shrinking percentage of...
Diversification Is Key to Factor Investing
As my co-author, Andrew Berkin, and I explain in our forthcoming book, “Your Complete Guide to Factor-Based Investing,” no matter how strong the evidence regarding the persistence and pervasiveness of an investment factor’s return premium, there’s some chance that the...
‘Free Lunch’ Investing Takes Time To Cook
As the director of research for The BAM Alliance, I’ve been getting lots of calls recently from investors questioning their international equity investments. This hasn’t been a surprise, as any time an asset class does poorly, a significant number of...
Hedge Funds Fail Across Asset Classes
Hedge funds began this year coming off their seventh-straight year of trailing U.S. stocks (as measured by the S&P 500 Index) by significant margins. What’s more, for the 10-year period ending 2015 (one that included the worst bear market in...
