Your Mutual Fund Manager Will Retire Before You Do
Your mutual fund manager has a solid plan for retirement. So far, it’s working beautifully. Your fund manager is fortunate to be part of a growth industry. Since 2004, assets under management have grown 124 percent. The number of U.S.-based...
Learn From the Fall of Active Management
Proponents of evidence-based investing, myself included, doubted whether this day would ever come. Investors are now actually paying attention to the overwhelming data supporting evidence-based investing and are fleeing active management. Some of the recent developments reinforcing this growing trend...
How NOT to Prepare for the Market Correction
Almost everyone believes a stock market correction is inevitable. The financial media whip up a daily frenzy of anxiety by offering conflicting views from “investment pros” on when this correction will occur. Here are some tips for dealing with the...
The Algorithm Scam
An algorithm is defined as a set of detailed instructions that result in a predictable end-state from a known beginning. The discovery of an algorithm that would consistently generate outsized returns would be the holy grail of investing. The individual...
401(k) Madness
All across America, a familiar ritual is repeated at least quarterly. Sponsors of 401(k) plans meet with their brokers, insurance companies or other advisers. The purpose of the meeting is to decide which funds to keep as investment options and...
Brain Tricks May Reduce Your Returns
What if you could create a forum for discussing the best way to invest in a responsible and intelligent manner? Who would you invite to participate in this debate? Here are my suggestions: There would be no shortage of candidates...
Listen to Your Brain to Sense a Market Correction
The financial media continues to stoke anxiety and fear — and trading — with “news” about a coming market correction. On its list of “must reads” for July 16, Yahoo Finance featured these articles: “Investors haven’t been this optimistic since...
Ignore the Babble Masking as “Financial News”
You are besieged with a daily onslaught of what passes for “financial news.” Much of it is nonsense, self-serving and unreliable. Yet the sheer volume, and the clever way it is packaged and disseminated, may lead you to take action....
Three Facts You Don’t Know About Mutual Funds
Mutual funds are a huge and profitable business. According to the Investment Company Institute, at the end of 2013, $30 trillion worldwide was invested in these funds. More than half that amount was invested by approximately 96 million Americans in U.S.-based...
The Great American Pension Rip-Off
Unless you work for a city or state government, you probably don’t have a traditional pension — also known as a “defined benefit plan.” The number of employers offering these plans has decreased sharply, and now, by some estimates, only 29...
