Proper financial planning that provides for our financial needs in retirement is perhaps the prototypical example of willful blindness. We all know that most people have not saved enough to provide for a sustainable long-term income in retirement. The core issue here is that we (as a society and as individuals) are making consistently bad [...]
Archive for the ‘Investors’ Category
Are We Hard-Wired To Make Bad Financial Choices?
Posted in 401(k), Active Investing, Behavioral Finance, financial planning, Investors, Long-term investing, Low Cost Investing, Market Outlook, Markets, Passive Investing, Regular Investing, Retirement, retirement income, retirement planning, Wealth, tagged college debt, college education, housing bubble, mortgage, mortgages debt, Real Estate, saving for college on May 18, 2012 | 1 Comment »
The Most Common Mistake Investors Make
Posted in Active Investing, Asset Allocation, Behavioral Finance, Bonds, Diversification, ETFs, Financial Advisors, financial planning, Investors, Long-term investing, Low Cost Investing, Market Outlook, Market Timing, Media and the markets, Mutual Funds, Personalization, Retirement, retirement planning, Stock Investing, Uncategorized on May 11, 2012 | 5 Comments »
Each year, the research firm DALBAR publishes their Quantitative Analysis of Investor Behavior. Every year, the results show that individual investors are their own worst enemies. And this year is no exception. The QAIB examines the real returns earned by investors in equity mutual funds, bond mutual funds, and asset allocation mutual funds. Over the [...]
Financial Literacy is the Issue of the Month? Try Issue of the Century.
Posted in Active Investing, debt, Diversification, financial planning, Investors, Leverage, Long-term investing, Market Outlook, Market Timing, Markets, mortgages, Mutual Funds, pension plans, pensions, Real Estate, Retirement, retirement income, retirement planning, Risk, Stock Investing, Uncategorized, Volatility, Wealth, tagged budget, credit card debt, financial literacy, housing bubble, student loan debt on April 24, 2012 | 3 Comments »
April is Financial Literacy Month. All month long, I have been trying to think of how to write a post that can express the depth of my conviction that the lack of financial knowledge is at the core of some of the biggest problems that we, as individuals (and as a nation) are facing. There [...]
Sell in May? 9 Trillion Reasons to Say “No”
Posted in 401(k), Active Investing, Asset Allocation, Diversification, financial planning, Global Investing, Investors, Leverage, Long-term investing, Market Outlook, Uncategorized, tagged bonds, Fed, Federal Reserve, G4, interest rates, sell in may, sell in may and go away, stocks on April 20, 2012 | 3 Comments »
Guest Post by Contributing Editor, David Kotok, Chairman and Chief Investment Officer, Cumberland Advisors. The old adage “Sell in May and go away” was good guidance for stock markets last year. The market peaked on April 29 and bottomed out on October 3. For a detailed discussion of this period and the subsequent bull-market recovery, [...]
Sell in May?
Posted in financial planning, financial ratios, Investors, Leverage, Market Outlook, Risk, Uncategorized, Volatility, Wealth, tagged zacks on April 13, 2012 | 1 Comment »
Guest Post by Contributing Editor, Kip Robbins, CFA, Zacks.com. This week, I bumped into a friend who remembered my article based on seasonal investing in which I suggested to buy around Halloween and sell in May (see “Goblins, Ghouls and the Halloween Effect“). He reminded me that May is soon approaching, and asked me whether [...]
The Biggest Unknown in Financial Planning
Posted in 401(k), Active Investing, Asset Allocation, book review, Diversification, financial planning, Income Investing, Investors, Leverage, Long-term investing, Low Cost Investing, Market Outlook, pension plans, pensions, Personalization, Rebalancing, Retirement, retirement income, retirement planning, Risk, Stock Investing, Uncategorized, Volatility, Wealth, tagged bonds, government bonds, monte carlo, safe income on April 10, 2012 | 3 Comments »
In a recent blog post, I reviewed a new book on the future of the Equity Risk Premium (ERP). For those who are not familiar with the ERP, it is the additional return that investors expect to receive for bearing the risk of owning company stock vs. owning a low-risk asset like government bonds. As [...]
Housing Prices and the Economy: Is There Any Good News?
Posted in Investors, Long-term investing, mortgages, Real Estate, Uncategorized, Wealth, tagged case shiller, economy, Housing, housing prices, income, recession, Wealth, wealth effect on April 2, 2012 | 1 Comment »
New data shows that housing prices are not improving. Nationally, prices have now dropped 34.4% from their peak in 2006. Prices are now the lowest they have been since the end of 2002, according to the Case/Shiller index. Robert Shiller, co-creator of the index and long-term researcher on housing prices, warns that risks remain and [...]
Should You Invest In an Initial Public Offering?
Posted in 401(k), Active Investing, Asset Allocation, financial planning, Income Investing, Investors, Leverage, Long-term investing, Low Cost Investing, Market Outlook, Risk, Uncategorized, tagged Facebook, Google, LinkedIn on March 27, 2012 | 3 Comments »
Guest Blog by Vanessa Richardson, Mint.com. Facebook recently filed for an initial public offering (IPO) to raise $5 billion in its IPO, putting its total valuation at $100 billion. Many investors, both institutional and individual, are drooling over the prospects of buying into the hottest company on the block – for now. I say for now, [...]
From the Portfolioist Bookshelf: Rethinking the Equity Risk Premium
Posted in Active Investing, Asset Allocation, Bonds, Financial Advisors, Investors, Long-term investing, Retirement, retirement income, Risk, Stock Investing, Uncategorized, Volatility, Wealth, tagged equity risk premium, P/E Ratio on March 23, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
Where do we come up with the idea that stocks “should” provide returns substantially greater than bonds? What are the factors that determine the expected future return of stocks as compared to bonds? The answers to these questions are at the core of studies into the equity risk premium (ERP) and the CFA Institute has [...]
Financial Services for the Masses
Posted in Investors, Low Cost Investing, Market Outlook, Portfolio Investing 101, Regular Investing, Uncategorized, Wealth, tagged broker fees, brokers, financial services, institutional investors, JP Morgan, low interest rates, macys, small investors, walmart, wealth management on March 9, 2012 | 2 Comments »
JP Morgan has gotten considerable attention in the press for a recent statement that serving clients with less than $100,000 in assets is unprofitable. Not surprisingly, one response to this statement has been to frame it in terms of the message that financial institutions just want rich clients and don’t want to spend their time [...]
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