One of the most important economic trends to emerge in recent years is that gains in corporate profitability are not translating to wage increases or more hiring. The New York Times just published an article on this disconnect, but it’s nothing new. The basic story is simple. Even as corporate profits have increased at a healthy clip, there has not been a similar gain for workers in terms of new hiring or increased compensation for current employees. (more…)
Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Implications of Robust Corporate Profits and Stagnant Wages
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged corporate earnings, corporate profitability, disposable income, economic power, employers, globalization, hiring, household income, stagnant incomes on March 11, 2013 | Leave a Comment »
Folio Investing Celebrates Its Target Date Folios’ Five-Year Record of Outperformance
Posted in Diversification, ETFs, Investors, Long-term investing, Low Cost Investing, Regular Investing, retirement planning, Risk, Uncategorized, Volatility, tagged diversification strategy, folios, fund performance, Retirement Investing, risk targeting, target date, Target Date Folios, Target Date Funds on January 24, 2013 | Leave a Comment »
Folio Investing’s Successful ETF-Based Alternative to Legacy Target-Date Funds Offers Superior Diversification, Risk Targeting and Flexibility; Firm Seeks Distribution Partner to Broaden Availability
Folio Investing announced today that, over the five years since they were brought to market in December 2007, its Target Date Folios have significantly outperformed traditional target-date funds. The Folios have provided both higher returns and lower volatility than the competing funds during this tumultuous period. (more…)
Sector Watch: Municipal Bonds
Posted in 401(k), Asset Allocation, Bonds, ETFs, pensions, Retirement, retirement income, retirement planning, Risk, Taxes, Uncategorized, tagged Bill Gross, fixed income, folios, high yield bonds, income exempt, interest rates, Meredith Whitney, muni, Municipal Bonds, public pensions, QE, Quantitative Easing, Target Date Folios, Treasury bonds on November 19, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
Municipal bonds are issued by states and municipalities and typically have tax advantages relative to other fixed income assets. In general, income from muni bonds is tax exempt at the federal level and at the state level for investors living in the issuing state. Municipal bonds have historically been favored by investors in high tax brackets who, of course, derive more benefit from the tax exemptions by virtue of being in the highest tax brackets. (more…)
Tax Loss Harvesting: Five Tips to Keep More of What’s Yours
Posted in Financial Advisors, financial planning, Income Investing, Investors, Long-term investing, Low Cost Investing, Personalization, Taxes, Uncategorized, Wealth, tagged long term gain, long term loss, portfolio, short term gain, short term loss, Tax Loss Harvesting, Taxes on August 24, 2012 | 1 Comment »
Here at the Portfolioist, we frequently turn to Steve Thorpe, founder of Pragmatic Portfolios, LLC to share his insights on the topic of Tax Loss Harvesting. Here are 5 of his Tax Loss Harvesting Tips to help keep more of your money when tax time rolls around.
It’s impossible to reliably predict future changes within the investment markets, however there are numerous ways for investors to favorably influence their own results. Important areas to focus on include developing an investment plan, saving regularly, diversifying widely, adhering to an appropriate asset allocation, and paying attention to all forms of costs – including taxes. For many investors, tax loss harvesting can improve their after-tax bottom line, sometimes to the tune of thousands of dollars per year. (more…)
Financial Products are Sold, Not Bought
Posted in Commodities, Financial Advisors, financial planning, Personalization, Risk, Uncategorized, Wealth, tagged Consumer, Consumer Confidence, financial products, financial services, sales on August 22, 2012 | 4 Comments »
Guest post by Contributing Editor, Robert P. Seawright, Chief Investment and Information Officer for Madison Avenue Securities.
Critics of the financial services industry (often with good reason) frequently remind consumers that financial products are typically “sold” rather than “bought” and implore them not to fall into that trap. The concept here is that financial products are “sold” — pushed upon a consuming public that doesn’t understand them or perhaps even want or need them. Instead, the alleged basis for their continued vibrancy and ongoing sales is that advisors get paid big bucks to sell them. (more…)
The Power of Effective Diversification: Part II
Posted in Asset Allocation, Diversification, ETFs, Financial Advisors, financial planning, Investors, Leverage, Long-term investing, Market Outlook, Market Timing, Markets, Retirement, retirement income, retirement planning, Uncategorized, Volatility, Wealth, tagged correlation, diversification, Target Date Folios, Target Date Funds on August 17, 2012 | 4 Comments »
Last week, I posted an article discussing how diversification is one of the most misunderstood concepts in investing. In today’s post I continue with the second half of this two-part series titled, “The Power of Effective Diversification.”
In Part I of this article, I discussed the difference between naive diversification (holding lots of stuff in a portfolio) and real diversification (combining assets in a portfolio to create risk offsets). I also showed how a well-diversified portfolio can maintain the ability to participate in market rallies while still mitigating risk. In Part II, we will explore what an effectively diversified portfolio looks like today. (more…)
Tax Loss Harvesting: Share Your Pain with Uncle Sam
Posted in Active Investing, Behavioral Finance, Diversification, Dividends, financial planning, Investors, Long-term investing, Market Outlook, Market Timing, Markets, Passive Investing, Regular Investing, Retirement, retirement income, retirement planning, Stock Investing, Taxes, Uncategorized, Volatility, Wealth, tagged long term gain, long term loss, portfolio, short term gain, short term loss, Tax Loss Harvesting, Taxes on August 15, 2012 | 2 Comments »
Summer is winding down. And believe it or not, 2012 is more than half way over, which means it’s a good time for investors to start thinking about the year-end tax implications of their portfolios.
We invited Steve Thorpe, Founder of Pragmatic Portfolios, LLC to share some insights on Tax Loss Harvesting. Enjoy.
Tax Loss Harvesting: Why Should You Care?
Would you invest a few hours to reduce this year’s taxes by $1,000 or more?
For investors with taxable investment accounts, this is often possible by taking advantage of tax loss harvesting (TLH). This perfectly legal strategy makes lemonade from lemons, allowing Uncle Sam to share part of the pain of the losses inevitably experienced by investors at some points during their investing career.
Between now and (more…)
Tried and True Money Advice from Warren Buffett
Posted in Active Investing, Asset Allocation, Behavioral Finance, Diversification, Financial Advisors, financial planning, financial ratios, Investors, Long-term investing, Low Cost Investing, Market Timing, Markets, Regular Investing, Retirement, retirement income, retirement planning, Risk, Stock Investing, Uncategorized, Volatility, Wealth on August 13, 2012 | 2 Comments »
Guest post by Contributing Editor, Janet Al-Saad, Mint.com.
When it comes to financial wisdom, few people merit as much attention as Warren Buffett. The man renowned as the “Sage of Omaha” built a billion-dollar empire from scratch, all the while maintaining modest spending habits that are the envy of every frugal person everywhere. Liz Claman of the Fox Business Network spoke with Buffett recently, and shares some of his wisdom with Mint Life: (more…)
The Power of Effective Diversification
Posted in Active Investing, Asset Allocation, Behavioral Finance, Bonds, Diversification, financial planning, Investors, Long-term investing, Low Cost Investing, Market Outlook, Market Timing, Markets, Passive Investing, Retirement, retirement income, retirement planning, Risk, Stock Investing, Uncategorized, Volatility, Wealth, tagged AGG, correlation, iShares, iShares AGG, Markowitz, Target Date Folios on August 10, 2012 | 7 Comments »
Diversification is one of the most misunderstood concepts in investing.
If you read a good explanation of the strategy, you’ll learn that the goal of diversification is to combine different investments that tend not to be driven by the same factors in the economy. So when one investment lags, the others in the portfolio gain ground (or at least will be unaffected)
For example: Combining gasoline stocks with bicycle manufacturers in your portfolio. When gasoline is cheap, people drive more and bike less. When gasoline prices start to rise, people usually cut back on their driving and start biking to work. Either way, your portfolio is now less exposed to the risk of a downturn in demand for either bicycles or gasoline. (more…)
Investors’ 10 Most Common Behavioral Biases
Posted in 401(k), Active Investing, Asset Allocation, Behavioral Finance, debt, Diversification, Dividends, ETFs, financial planning, Inflation, Investors, Leverage, Long-term investing, Low Cost Investing, Market Outlook, Markets, Passive Investing, pensions, Portfolio Investing 101, Retirement, retirement income, retirement planning, Risk, Stock Investing, Uncategorized, Volatility, Wealth on August 3, 2012 | 4 Comments »
Guest post by Contributing Editor, Robert P. Seawright, Chief Investment and Information Officer for Madison Avenue Securities.
Barry Ritholz (of The Big Picture and a Sunday Business columnist at The Washington Post) recently contributed Investors’ 10 most common mistakes to The Washington Post Business Section quarterly investing section. It’s a commentary that he has been working on for a while — the ten topics are listed with links to longer discussions of each common mistake here. I created my own investing “checklist” (here) in response to Barry’s original list. For yet one more iteration of the theme, I offer my list of Investors’ 10 Most Common Behavioral Biases. There are a number of others, of course, and more will continue to be uncovered. But I think that these are the key ones. (more…)
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