So what has caused such a surge in international returns versus the U.S. so far this year? Is it just short-term noise, reversion to the mean, or something more systematic? If the last few months were purely short-term noise, we will soon know, as U.S. stocks will resume dominance.

On the evening before his presentation at the Exchange Conference last week, I sat down with Rob Arnott to discuss whether now is the time for smart beta to shine. Arnott is the founder and chair of Research Affiliates and is known as the “godfather of smart beta.”

Though you may not agree with my view on all seven of these terms, it may be beneficial for you and your clients to at least consider them.

’ll first summarize their projections and note what I think are some shockers. Then I’ll take a look at how accurate their past forecasts have been. Finally, I’ll conclude with what I’m changing in my own portfolio...

I’m not ready to concede that active bests the benchmarks by adding what I consider alpha. For example, “positioning the fund to have more credit risk than its benchmark” is a risk premium much in the same way that the equity risk premium produced returns over the risk-free rate. The credit risk premium may be worth it, but that’s beta, not alpha.

Double-digit increases in rates are common. I’m definitely feeling the pain, as I suspect you are. So here are a few things I do to help my clients save some money.

Rather than go back and reminisce about the articles I’m most proud of, I think a better exercise is to look at those I got wrong and reflect on what might be learned.

Building a TIPS ladder gives us a license to spend and creates a spending floor. My TIPS ladder combined with Social Security provides a $10,000 monthly inflation-adjusted cash flow, though I’m delaying taking Social Security until age 70, of course.

Rules are made to be broken, so I would call this a 50 percent starting place in your discussion with the client. I certainly wouldn’t recommend only a 50 percent equity portfolio to a young client with a high willingness and need to take risk or the same to any client who had a low willingness and need to take risk.

Is this the beginning of the inevitable bear, where these then-most-valuable stocks could get clobbered? Here’s what history teaches us about the current concentrated market and the current correction.

Conflicts are everywhere in financial planning. They exist in all fee models, whether they be commissions, assets under management, fixed fee, or hourly. Any time money changes hands there are conflicts of interests.

With crypto going mainstream, it’s important that advisors understand the pros and cons of including crypto in a portfolio.

Corporate America is buying back its own shares at a near record pace, despite a new one percent buyback excise tax instituted in 2023. While buybacks are often criticized, they are wonderful for investors – though probably not in the way most people think.

The article to which this “Concerned American” refers was about investing in low-cost diversified index funds and U.S. Treasury instruments, such as TIPS. It wasn’t about politics, nor was I even thinking of the election as I wrote the piece.

Implementing the TIPS ladder is clunky, so I challenged the fund industry to simplify and improve with a TIPS ladder Fund. Stone Ridge Asset Management has done just that with its new LifeX Inflation Protected mutual funds.

While investing strategies should be consistent, changes in markets and the economy make some advice more relevant than it was in the past. Here are the top 10 things I’m telling clients.

Beginning this year, the SECURE Act 2.0 allows owners of 529 plans to convert unused 529 funds to the beneficiary’s Roth IRA.

If you own bond funds in a taxable account, it is possible to turn some of the SEC yield into long-term capital gains taxed at lower rates, which could save a bundle. Here’s how.

Passive investing means buy and hold, and that’s not what I do for my own portfolio or recommend to clients. Here are eight ways I’m an active investor.

Let’s examine what the bond market is telling us about inflation and a solution that will pay you and your clients to insure for the possibility of continued high, long-term inflation.

When it comes to the “art” of convincing people to buy services or products, I consider myself the worst salesperson on the planet.

Here’s how I apply behavioral finance to help clients to think differently about their investing.

When adjusting for more realistic assumptions and considering the fact that the insurance company can change return caps and that inflation is both an unknown and deep risk, an FIA, along with most annuities, is not on the efficient frontier in either accumulation or decumulation phases.

As we enter the hurricane season, there are signs of three financial calamities merging to form the perfect storm. The nexus is in commercial real estate, but it extends to banking and the broader economy.

How have U.S. stocks performed this year? The answer is simple, but you’d never know that from looking at the three most often quoted indexes.

AI’s arrival will have an increasingly large impact on our lives. That includes investing and, especially, other aspects of financial planning.

One of the toughest dilemmas I wrestle with is whether to consider future tax liabilities from unrealized gains in the portfolio and taxes from withdrawing from traditional retirement accounts.

Here is some research on why our clients built a sizable portfolio while others had high income but little savings. I’ll address specifics on how to get savers to enjoy their money.

Over the past couple of decades, I’ve told clients many very important things. Most of them are timeless, which is why I find myself saying the same things repeatedly. Here are the top 10, and I’ve saved my most important for last.

Morningstar’s latest research showed higher safe spending rates across all asset allocations over all time horizons. I don’t agree with those results.

Rising interest rates was the dominant story in 2022. Did fixed income losses cripple insurance companies? Or has the insurance industry shifted the risk to your clients who purchased their products?

I built a 4.36% real (inflation-adjusted) systematic withdrawal portfolio using a 30-Year TIPS ladder.

Despite crippling stock and bond market performance in 2022, there are nuggets of good news for clients.

I wrote an article last month regarding the 10 things I got wrong about financial planning over my 20-year career. As it happens, I also got some things right and was happy when I was asked to write about them.

In the last two decades as an investment advisor, I’ve often been wrong – about markets, products and their providers, investors, the government, and the advisory business. Here are my top 10 items I’ve got wrong.

None of us can control markets, but it’s critical that our clients know how they have performed relative to appropriate benchmarks.

I’m going to review the research on safe-spending rates and then critique common methods of risk mitigation. I’ll offer the practical methods to reduce sequence-of-return risk that I suggest to my clients.

Advisors who use Dimensional funds are generally believed to more likely adhere to their investment strategies than their peers. A comparison of fund and investor returns calls this conventional wisdom into question.

I require clients to send me their most recent tax returns. Here are the insights I learn and how it provides a ton of value to clients.

Advisors make seven predictably irrational mistakes when it comes to bonds, depleting their clients’ wealth and standard of living.

Here is how I nudge clients (sometimes not so gently) to where they should be on their portfolio.

Advocates of active management – particularly those who favor smart-beta strategies – claim that cap-weighting suffers from the irreparable flaw of overweighting a handful of supposedly overvalued high-tech stocks. But that reasoning is flawed.

Data from Vanguard shows that advisors have increased allocations to passive, low-cost investment products. But they also increased allocations to commodities and timed markets poorly, particularly after the March 2020 crash.

I got my MBA at Kellogg nearly four decades ago and have been teaching investing for the last 20 years. Though not much has changed in the curriculum, over time I’ve realized that some things are downright wrong. Here are the big six.

Looking back at my personal financial planning practice, there are some things I’ve done right and some mistakes I’ve made along the way.

The Biden administration’s proposals won’t have much impact on the merely wealthy, but some changes will have huge consequences for the very wealthy.

Insurance is one of the areas I spend time working with clients to save them money and add value to the financial planning process. Here’s how I frame things to clients to give actionable advice.

I’ve spent more time explaining bonds to clients than stocks, mostly overcoming eight great misconceptions about fixed income.

With U.S. equity valuations very rich by historical standards, many – including Jeremy Grantham, Rob Arnott and Vanguard – are predicting emerging markets to excel. I’ll examine the case and give my thoughts on how to invest in emerging markets.

Post-pandemic financial planning will reward advisors who illustrate the relationship between money and happiness to their clients.