Comments for Portfolio Investing Blog: Portfolioist

Comment on Harvard’s Michael Porter Shares His Economic Outlook by Geoff Considine

Geoff Considine — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 21:31:50 +0000

And labor participation rates have dropped again:
http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2013/0308/Unemployment-rate-drops-to-7.7-percent.-How-real-is-job-market-progress

Comment on Harvard’s Michael Porter Shares His Economic Outlook by Geoff Considine

Geoff Considine — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 15:08:48 +0000

Another data point supporting Porter:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/consumer-spending-income-posts-largest-133526081.html

Comment on Cheap Money + Share Buybacks = Bull Market? by Stock Buyback Boom Continues

Stock Buyback Boom Continues — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 14:46:36 +0000

[...] data suggests that, in part, 2012’s big run had something to do with big repurchase plans that topped $300 billion [...]

Comment on Financial Advisor Roundtable: Investing Outlook 2011 by international financial advisers

international financial advisers — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 02:42:25 +0000

I’m in complete agreement with a lot of the information in the following paragraphs. You certainly are a special article writer have real profit put your own views directly into apparent phrases. Anyone will be able to understand why.

Comment on How To Measure Your Investment Portfolio — Part One: Volatility & Beta by Marius

Marius — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 12:34:57 +0000

One can calculate volatility, beta and other statistical metrics of a multi-holdings portfolio on InvestSpy.com. It’s free of charge.

Comment on Choosing and Paying for Higher Education by Geoff Considine

Geoff Considine — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 16:07:30 +0000

Thanks Richard. This disparity may reflect the fact that grads from private school are, in general, more likely to attend graduate school either because they have the money or because the private schools have a different population of students. This is one problem. Here is another: different populations of students when they enter college. There was a study from a couple of years ago that attempted to solve this by looking only a public university grads who were also accepted to Ivys and then comparing their outcomes to those of the Ivy League grads:

http://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/the-college-solution/2011/03/01/the-ivy-league-earnings-myth

When you control the samples this way, the economic advantage of Ivy League schools goes away.

Comment on Choosing and Paying for Higher Education by Richard Friary

Richard Friary — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 00:15:59 +0000

According to the Smart Money data, the median salaries that new graduates receive are independent of the tuition and fees (4 years, Class of 2009) they paid. The Spearman correlation coefficient of salaries and tuition equals 0.0291, and is indistinguishable from zero. Mid career,1997 graduates fare better. The Spearman correlation coefficient between their median salaries and the tuition and fees they paid equals 0.3468 and is statistically significant at the 95% confidence level.

Comment on Saving and Investing for Retirement: Part Two by Geoff Considine

Geoff Considine — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 15:27:36 +0000

Time magazine has a nice overview of this topic in a Feb 2013 article:
http://business.time.com/2013/02/11/sizing-up-the-big-question-how-much-money-do-you-need-to-retire/

Comment on From the Portfolioist Bookshelf: Rethinking the Equity Risk Premium by Geoff Considine

Geoff Considine — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 17:54:06 +0000

Each year, Credit Suisse publishes a long-term analysis of the equity risk premium and what the future looks like. The lead authors are Elroy Dimson and Paul Marsh. It is a good read. The 2013 version is out:
http://www.investmenteurope.net/digital_assets/6305/2013_yearbook_final_web.pdf

Comment on The Yield Paradox by Geoff Considine

Geoff Considine — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 20:19:20 +0000

But remember that Treasury bonds have the highest pure interest rate risk as a percentage of their total risk because there is assumed to be zero default risk.