Value Premium Goes Missing
That value stocks (in particular, small value stocks) have provided higher returns for investors over time is both well-documented and well-known. So it’s no great surprise that—as director of research for The BAM Alliance, a community of more than 140...
‘The One-Page Financial Plan’
If you’re like most Americans, you may be confused, or even paralyzed, when it comes to developing a financial plan. In fact, most investors I’ve met—including many of those who have a relationship with a stockbroker—don’t have a written investment...
‘Sure Things’ That Didn’t Pan Out
Each January, I put together a list of predictions that financial “gurus” have made for the upcoming year—sort of a consensus of “sure things.” I then keep track of whether or not these “sure thing” predictions have actually come to...
UK Exceeds US In Common Sense
Recent events have led me to conclude that, at least in some ways, the U.K. is ahead of the United States when it comes to investing. The first—and by far the most important—reason I have for drawing such a conclusion...
Don’t Play The Loser’s Game
Recently, a blog post by Chris Marx, a senior portfolio manager for equities at New York-based AllianceBernstein (AB), came to my attention. In it, Marx commented on a March 9, 2015 article in The Wall Street Journal that highlighted the...
Be Wary Of ‘Experts’
Many individual investors have seen their portfolios devastated, despite having followed the advice of “experts.” They are left wondering, “What went wrong?” As you may have already guessed, the answer is that following the advice of “future tellers” disguised as...
3 Fine Passive Funds Compared
Index funds and structured passive asset-class funds are similar in the way that rectangles and squares are similar. All squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares. Comparatively, while all index funds are passively managed, not all passively managed...
Avoid The Famous & Authoritative
In my last post, I discussed how we tend to crave certainty, even when we know, logically, that it doesn’t exist. With investing, it’s a desire to believe that there’s someone who can protect us from bear markets and the...
Don’t Believe The Active Hype
I was struck recently by a commercial for the MFS family of mutual funds. In its advertisement, MFS stated: “We believe in the power of active management.” They then went on to boast about the power of their global network,...
Admit Your Investing Mistakes
There are a number of explanations for why many individual investors ignore the overwhelming body of academic evidence and continue to play the loser’s game that is active management. Briefly, three of those reasons are: An education system that has...
