Losing the Forest for the Trees: The Dangers of Comparative Investing
Some investors measure financial success by comparing their returns against popular benchmarks like the S&P 500 Index. It can be comforting to know how your investments compare to others … but there’s a catch. If you aren’t comparing your investments to similar investments, the results can misinform rather than enlighten your decision-making. This will knock […]
Black Monday Is Not a Black Swan
Last Monday, the S&P 500 dropped by more than 3.5%. This is a big drop, and has a lot of folks wondering if they should be invested in the market at all. It’s easy to get wrapped up in media coverage, and not keep last Monday in perspective. It was a bad day, but historically, […]
Total Return vs Income Investing: Same, but Different
Retirees can take 2 main approaches to spending from portfolios. 1) Focus on income and dividends produced in the portfolio, a.k.a. “income investing.” 2) Sell assets as appropriate to meet spending needs. For your portfolio, they’re basically the same thing. But, from your point of view, you should be aware of one difference: focusing on income investing can make your portfolio less diversified.
Whether Gold Prices Are Up or Down, You Should Stay Away
Along with China and the potential implications of rising interest rates, many stories have come out this week heralding the fall of gold and the new world we now live in as a result. It seems only a few years ago, we were simply deluged by articles about the merits of gold, the frailties of fiat […]
Bucket of Cold Water Dumped on this Investing Strategy
Poor Greece. Not even the Greek alphabet has been given safe quarter these past weeks. Perhaps it is the ever increasing popularity of ETF strategies and the continuing underwhelming performance of active managers, but one thing is clear if you are trying to sell an investment product: it is best to couch it as an […]
Can Indexing Become Too Big?
This is an issue that comes up as a last ditch effort to attempt to sway the active/passive argument in the active direction. It’s as if after a wave of articles that show the shortcomings of trying to outguess the markets an editor stands up and announces to the staff: “Folks, we need something ominous […]
Taking Risks That Make Sense
More risk does not mean more return, but more return follows more risk. Which risks make sense for you?
Why the Dow Doesn’t Work
With Apple’s addition to the Dow (or more properly, the Dow Jones Industrial Average), now is a great opportunity to look at how to think about the Dow, and indices more broadly. Indices are great tools for understanding what is going on in the markets, but you need to understand what to do with those […]
Are market valuations the most important factor for retirement income strategies?
The question remains as to whether historical withdrawal rates provide sufficient insight about what can reasonably be expected to work for more recent retirees.
