How do you know when an investment recommendation is worth heeding? Red tape and legal jargon aside, it’s about finding an advisor who exemplifies a few simple ideals: “There’s no confusion in the minds of investors ...
April 13, 2021
Financial Education & News
What Is Fiduciary Investment Advice, and Why Does It Matter (Now More Than Ever)?
SPACS, NFTs, and Flourishing in the Economic Jungle
“The American marketplace is an economic jungle. As in all jungles, you easily can be destroyed if you don’t know the rules of survival. ... But you also can come through in fine shape and you ...
Market Review 2020 – Valuable Insights to Pass Along
As we look back now and do our market review 2020, there’s one thing for sure. Year 2020 proved to be one of the most tumultuous in modern history, marked by a number of developments that ...
Why Stick with a Globally Diversified Portfolio? Principle 7 in Evidence-Based Investing
Why buy and hold a globally diversified portfolio instead of reacting to breaking news? Political, social, and economic headlines come and go. But you never know which market segments will outperform from day to day, or ...
Diversify Your Investment Universe: Principle 6 in Evidence-Based Investing
Expanding your investment universe by holding securities across many market segments can help manage overall risk. In a word, we call this “diversification.” But diversifying within your home market may not be enough. Global diversification helps ...
What Really Drives Higher Expected Returns? Principle 5 in Evidence-Based Investing
There is a wealth of academic research into what really drives higher expected returns. Simply put, expected returns = current market prices + expected future cash flows. Investors can use this basic equation to optimize their ...
Understanding How Markets Work for You: Principle 4 in Evidence-Based Investing
The financial markets have rewarded long-term investors. Understanding how markets work is a worthwhile investment of time and resources. People expect a positive return on the capital they supply, and historically, the equity and bond markets ...
Resist Chasing Past Performance: Principle 3 in Evidence-Based Investing
Some investors select mutual funds based on their past performance. Yet, past returns offer little insight into a fund’s future returns. For example, most funds in the top quartile (25%) of previous five-year returns did not ...
Trying To Outguess the Market Has No Role: Principle 2 in Evidence-Based Investing
The market’s pricing power works against investors who try to outguess the market. As evidence, only 23% of US equity mutual funds and 8% of fixed income funds have survived and outperformed their benchmarks over the ...
Investment Advice
DFA founder on the Value of Flexibility
We’ve long known that flexibility adds value. My colleagues Bob Merton and Myron Scholes became Nobel laureates for their work on option pricing. The option to act when beneficial is worth something. That kind of thinking ...
The More Things Change
My, what a quarter it’s been. At work and play, who isn’t eager for this summer to be the most awesome one ever? We’re seeing similar pent-up yearnings in an array of analysts’ second-quarter financial forecasts: ...
Ideal Investment Portfolio Management: Principle 10 in Evidence-Based Investing
We wrap our 10-part series on the principles of evidence-based investing with how a fiduciary financial advisor can add value to your investment portfolio management. Most importantly, by combining financial expertise with personalized guidance, we help ...
Six Hacks for Maintaining Investment Discipline: Principle 9 in Evidence-Based Investing
Investment discipline is all about being able to see past the daily market distractions to maintain a long-term perspective. A big challenge here is knowing how to identify and ignore your own emotional investing biases. They ...
The Bumpy Road to the Market’s Long-Term Average
Since 1926, the US stock market has rewarded investors with an average annual return of about 10% – the market’s long term average. But it’s important to remember that returns in any given year may be sky-high, extremely ...
Emotional Investing Is Risky Investing: Principle 8 in Evidence-Based Investing
Many people struggle with emotional investing. That is, they find it difficult to make consistent, rational investment decisions. Instead, they tend to react to current market conditions out of fear, excitement, or other gut instincts. Emotional ...
Why Stick with a Globally Diversified Portfolio? Principle 7 in Evidence-Based Investing
Why buy and hold a globally diversified portfolio instead of reacting to breaking news? Political, social, and economic headlines come and go. But you never know which market segments will outperform from day to day, or ...
Diversify Your Investment Universe: Principle 6 in Evidence-Based Investing
Expanding your investment universe by holding securities across many market segments can help manage overall risk. In a word, we call this “diversification.” But diversifying within your home market may not be enough. Global diversification helps ...
What Really Drives Higher Expected Returns? Principle 5 in Evidence-Based Investing
There is a wealth of academic research into what really drives higher expected returns. Simply put, expected returns = current market prices + expected future cash flows. Investors can use this basic equation to optimize their ...
Retirement Advice
6 Tax Planning Strategies to Optimize Your Retirement Wealth
You’ll benefit from the tax planning strategies in this post, whether you are currently retired or are still counting down the years, months, or days until retirement. Being deliberate about your income, investment vehicles, and tax ...
10 Steps to Easing Financial Anxiety During Major Life Changes
Life happens and, sometimes, it can be incredibly worrisome from a financial standpoint. You’ve struggled through a divorce. Perhaps you’ve faced a life-threatening illness. And, you look at your bank account and wonder. What is going ...
The Tao of Wealth Management
The path to success in many areas of life is paved with continual hard work, intense activity, and a day-to-day focus on results. However, for many investors who adopt this approach to managing their wealth, that ...
A Focus on Fixed Income
It’s been approximately a decade since the Great Recession began. By year-end 2008, the U.S. Federal Reserve (the Fed) had lowered the target federal funds rate to near-zero and embarked on an aggressive quantitative easing campaign, ...
What’s Social Security Got for You?
Building the best strategy starts with pinpointing your benefit at different ages. Back in the late 1980s, when much like today there was mounting concern about the future of Social Security, Congress decided to reassure ...
Timing is Critical for Boomers Preparing to Claim Social Security
Make the Most of Your Benefits It has begun. America’s largest generation, the 79 million strong, post World War II baby-boomers has begun cashing in on its Social Security benefits. And, just as history records the ...
Divorce & Women's Wealth
10 Steps to Easing Financial Anxiety During Major Life Changes
Life happens and, sometimes, it can be incredibly worrisome from a financial standpoint. You’ve struggled through a divorce. Perhaps you’ve faced a life-threatening illness. And, you look at your bank account and wonder. What is going ...
Divorce and Social Security Benefits
Even if your ex-spouse has not applied for benefits, you may qualify to collect spousal Social Security payments based on his or her earnings record. When looking at divorce and Social Security remember, the end of ...
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