How the mutual fund graveyard can hurt investors
The tendency for mutual fund companies to drop poorly performing funds when calculating historical return data is a major problem for unsuspecting investors, and it’s known as survivorship bias. An investor selecting mutual funds today is choosing from a list...
Are You Too Conservative With Your Investments
Investors’ behavior can be heavily influenced by their experiences. For example, the financial crash of 1929 and the ensuing Great Depression permanently shattered many investors’ belief in buying stocks. A whole cohort of potential investors stayed away from equities for...
Are you too conservative with your investments?
Investors’ behavior can be heavily influenced by their experiences. For example, the financial crash of 1929 and the ensuing Great Depression permanently shattered many investors’ belief in buying stocks. A whole cohort of potential investors stayed away from equities for...
Don’t Be a Member of the Hedge Fund Club
2013 was another great year for the global hedge fund industry. Net inflows were almost $64 billion and total assets reaching $2.63 trillion. Unfortunately, investors in hedge funds haven’t fared as well as the purveyors. Thus, we have one of...
10 “Sure Things” for 2014: First-Quarter Review
Now that we’ve got one quarter of 2014 behind us, it’s time to review how some financial pundits’ “sure thing” predictions for this year are turning out. Keep in mind that if they were “sure things,” they should all (or at least...
Study Puts Another Nail in Active Management’s Coffin
An ongoing debate among investors is whether an active or passive strategy is most likely to give you the best results. Twice a year, Standard & Poor’s releases their active vs passive score card (officially called the S&P Indices Versus Active Fund...
Asset Allocation Guide: Value vs. growth
The asset allocation process is somewhat like a Russian nesting doll. What appears as a sole, simple object actually comprises a great deal. Like each doll, one after the next, a portfolio consists of detailed, intricate workings. We’ve already seen...
Asset Allocation Guide: Small-cap vs. large-cap
We’re getting closer to the finish line in our series of articles concerning asset allocation. So far, we’ve covered how to analyze your ability, willingness and needto take risk — and what do when one or more of those factors conflict. Then we moved to...
Asset Allocation Guide: U.S. vs. International Equity
In our ongoing series looking at asset allocation issues, we’ve already covered some essentials, namely, how to analyze your ability, willingness and need to take risk — and what do when one or more of those factors conflict. Figuring out where you fit along the risk...
Asset Allocation Guide: How much risk do you need?
The first two posts in our series on asset allocation focused on investors’ ability and willingness to take risk. Today, we turn our attention to the third of our three tests, the need to take risk. The need to take risk is determined by...
