Well-known investor Howard Marks of Oaktree Capital has often said, “You can’t predict, but you can prepare.” While markets are cyclical, oscillating between bull and bear markets, you can never know with certainty when the market is going to turn, how quickly it may do so, how far it might fall, or when it will [...]
You may have heard the news. Between October 1st and December 31st, the stock market delivered its worst quarter since 2008 to culminate its worst year since 2008. It was the stock market's worst December since 1931. What caused the stock market selloff? As we say often, there is rarely ever a definitive answer [...]
A respected portfolio manager presented recently at an investment symposium where she explained an investment strategy that has consistently maintained zero correlation to stocks. Several times during her presentation, she described why the strategy should be expected to maintain a near-zero correlation to stock markets in the future. During the break that followed, financial advisors [...]
1) Turn off the financial noise machine. Information overload is the norm in today’s world. We demand it. We expect it. Your mind, my mind, and all of our minds are wired to digest information, emotionally respond to the information, and then to do something as a result. This is why and how advertising works. [...]
If you have ever run a businesses or worked in corporate finance, you are likely familiar with the concept of zero-based budgeting (ZBB) as an alternative to traditional budgeting. The traditional form of budgeting - and the one most commonly used in corporate America - uses the amount spent last year in each category (or [...]
An important consideration in divorce and estate planning that often gets ignored, underappreciated, or just poorly evaluated is the relative comparison of different account types: tax free accounts, tax deferred accounts, and taxable accounts. While many people tend to think of $100,000 as $100,000, the account type in which the money resides can make a [...]
Earlier this month, we published an article explaining why investors would be well served to organize their portfolios like their kitchens. This process, one that the finance industry calls ‘asset location’, is simply intended to make the most of the existing tax code. The IRS sets the rules with different tax treatment for different account types [...]
Few things in our profession are more frustrating than when financial advisors deliver bad financial advice. It doesn’t have to be that bad financial advice is dishonest or delivered for the wrong reasons (like it is so often, for the benefit of the advice-provider). It is just that misguided or blatantly wrong financial advice hurts consumers and [...]
You probably do not know who Jim Simons is. He likes it that way. Simons is a quiet figure who is not interested in self-promotion and does not need to be told how great he is. Despite undoubted countless interview requests over the past 35 years, Simons has largely declined the opportunity to tell his [...]
Over the past two months, this blog has attacked guaranteed income annuities and the purported advantages of leasing a vehicle, assuredly triggering ill sentiment from annuity salespeople and auto dealerships. Given the recent string of controversial opinions and analysis, what better time to address the Department of Labor’s “fiduciary rule”? The fiduciary rule has been a [...]
