My blog provides valuable insights into Nobel Prize-winning financial strategies for investors. By utilizing decades of worldwide peer-reviewed capital markets research and analysis, I demonstrate how to build better investment portfolios with lower risks. I also examine common financial media misinformation and how investors can make better financial decisions.
“Sellers were out in force on the market today after negative news on the economy.” It’s a common line in TV finance reports. But have you ever wondered who is buying if so many people are selling?
The notion that sellers can outnumber buyers on down days doesn’t make sense. What the newscasters should say, of course, is that prices adjusted lower because would-be buyers weren’t prepared to pay the former price.
It has been more than 50 years since the idea of stock prices containing all relevant information was put forth. Information might come in the form of data from a company’s financial statements, news about a new product, a change in the regulatory environment, or simply a shift of investors’ tastes and preferences toward owning different investments.
Information is incorporated into security prices through the buying and selling process. While fair prices may not depend on a certain level of trading, over $400 billion of stocks traded on average each day in the world equity markets suggests that a great deal of information is incorporated into stock prices.1
To speak with your loved ones about death when it isn’t imminent is crucial, to speak with them when it is, is critical. Though difficult, finding a way to have these conversations can help you find solace and closure in their absence and closer to them while they are still here.
Research shows that those who have discussions about death with those in our lives who know that they are dying – and if those conversations come from a place of honesty and openness – you become closer to those you love who you may be losing as well as feel more hopeful about the future.[i]
When the prices of goods and services increase over time, consumers can buy fewer of them with every dollar they have saved.
This erosion of the real purchasing power of wealth is called inflation. Inflation is an important element of investing. In many cases, the reason for saving today is to support future spending. Therefore, keeping pace with inflation is a crucial goal for many investors. To help understand inflation’s impact on purchasing power, consider the following illustration of the effects of inflation over time. In 1916, nine cents would buy a quart of milk. Fifty years later, nine cents would only buy a small glass of milk. And more than 100 years later, nine cents would only buy about seven tablespoons of milk. How can investors potentially prevent this loss of purchasing power from inflation over time?
Passive investing has been ridiculed by Wall Street for decades. The following list is just a small sample of the criticisms I’ve collected over the years:
Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. strategist Inigo Fraser-Jenkins called it worse than Marxism.
David Smith, fund manager at Hargreaves Lansdown, called passive investors parasites on the financial system.
Tim O’Neill, global co-head of Goldman Sachs’ investment management division, warned investors that if passive investing gets too big, the market won't function.
The common theme is that indexing (and passive investing in general) has become such a force that the market’s price discovery function is no longer working properly. Goldman Sachs’ O’Neill has even called passive investing a “potential bubble machine.”
Given the number of questions I get from investors about this issue, one would think that passive investing is now dominating markets. Let’s see if there’s any truth to such beliefs, and whether there’s anything to worry about.
Good financial decision making starts in childhood and follows you through adolescence, college and into your adult life. Parents who teach their children the fundamentals of money management, budgeting and making prudent financial choices are providing them with a sound financial foundation.
However, teaching money skills early in life can often fall by the wayside because it is not exactly exciting. The disadvantage to this is that by the time kids are starting to make their own financial choices, they have not been given the tools to avoid mistakes and weigh their options responsibly. One of the most impactful ways to encourage informed financial decisions is to lead by example.
The chart below demonstrates a sharp decline in the number of audits since 2010. The IRS audits only 0.5% of all returns as of 2017. That being said, that is still nearly 1 million taxpayers that may face the dreaded audit this coming tax year With that in mind, here is a list of red flags that may draw the attention of the IRS to examining your tax return.
When it comes to choosing to work with asset managers on behalf of our clients there is no shortage of options. There is Schwab, AQR, American Funds, Vanguard, BlackRock and the list goes on. We have, for a long time, chosen Dimensional Fund Advisors as our primary asset manager for the funds we choose for our clients. The philosophy that they use is evidence-based investing. The choices that they make are backed by decades of research from Nobel Laureates and financial science. To us, this approach to investing just makes logical sense.
