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Results 1–50
of 53 found.
Stress Testing Portfolio Risk Estimates
by Geoff Considine,
I explore how estimated portfolio loss potential changes with different estimates of asset volatilities. Specifically, I compare portfolio loss potential calculated using Research Affiliates’ outlook for asset class volatility and return versus option-implied and historical volatilities.
The Ultimate Income Portfolio: 7.1% Yield with Low Risk
by Geoff Considine,
I analyze the performance of last year's Ultimate Income Portfolio and generate the one for 2014-15. The result is a portfolio that yields 7.1% with a risk level equivalent to a 70/30 stock/bond index fund. I also explore some of the lessons learned from four years of tracking and revising the portfolios.
Are Dividend Stocks Too Expensive?
by Geoff Considine,
Dividend strategies tend to have a strong value tilt and lower price-to-book (P/B) and price-to-earnings (P/E) ratios than the market as a whole. But those strategies can become overvalued. When this occurs - we are currently in such a period - building a high-dividend, low-risk portfolio requires extra care.
Do Commodities Belong in Your Allocation?
by Geoff Considine,
For much of the last several years, poor performance from commodities has hurt investors’ portfolios, a result of depressed interest rates, low inflation and slow economic growth. Any diversification value they provided was masked by strong equity-market performance. My analysis shows that only a small allocation to commodities is justified, and advisors can obtain most of the same benefits with REITs or individual TIPS.
Understanding the Controversy over Dividend-Based Investing
by Geoff Considine,
Should investors favor dividend-paying stocks over non-payers? A long-held investment tenet contends that they should. But in a controversy that has pitted two highly respected investment firms - New York-based Tweedy Browne and Texas-based Dimensional Fund Advisors (DFA) - against one another, advisors are being asked to reexamine this issue.
The Risk Forecast for 2014
It’s the time of year when market pundits take to the notoriously difficult task of forecasting returns. Volatility is equally important, however, and it can be predicted much more reliably than asset-class performance. My forecast shows that the options market is underestimating risk in 2014, giving investors an opportunity to purchase portfolio protection at attractive prices.
The Bomb Shelter Portfolio: Maximum Income with the Least Risk
by Geoff Considine,
Conservative investors are faced with unappealing choices. They can reduce risk and accept low yields and high exposure to rising rates, or they can push the bounds of their risk tolerance to increase yield. My analysis shows a way out of this predicament: a “bomb shelter” portfolio of ETFs, which offers attractive yield with minimal volatility and exposure to rising rates.
The Ultimate Income Portfolio Revisited
by Geoff Considine,
Rising interest rates will be unkind to income-generating assets and the investors who depend on them in retirement. My ultimate-income portfolio (UIP) provides a solution to this problem. It has reliably produced high income and low volatility with respect to the stock market, and its performance is likely to continue, even if rates rise further.
Do Income-Oriented Portfolios Reduce Safe Withdrawal Rates?
by Geoff Considine,
Among studies of safe withdrawal rates (SWRs) researchers have followed a common path: constructing portfolios with the goal of optimizing total return. This strategy achieves the highest SWR, but retirees often prefer a more income-oriented portfolio. I will illustrate the tradeoff investors make ? in terms of a lower SWR ? as they increase allocations to income-producing securities. But increasing income also brings a key benefit: lower estimation risk.
The Power of Diversification and Safe Withdrawal Rates
by Geoff Considine,
When Bill Bengen published his seminal research in 1994, a 4% safe withdrawal rate (SWR) was clearly attainable with a variety of asset allocations. But bond yields are lower now than they were then, and equity returns for the next 20 years are unlikely to exceed those of the prior two decades. Indeed, a new paper by three highly respected researchers showed that SWRs for stock-bond portfolios are well below 4%. But as I will demonstrate, a 4% SWR is still possible with a more diversified portfolio ? and without subjecting clients to additional risk.
A Better Alternative to Cap-Weighted Bond Indices
by Geoff Considine,
Capitalization weighting is the prevailing choice for equity index investors, who can choose from low-cost index funds constructed with theoretically proven methodologies. But capitalization weighting in fixed-income markets enjoys no such theoretical foundation, leaving investors without a clear choice for a diversified core fixed-income holding. A portfolio of bond exchange-traded funds that optimizes the tradeoff between yield and risk gives investors a commendable way to own a broadly diversified core allocation.
How to Construct a Low-Cost Conservative Portfolio
by Geoff Considine,
One of the greatest challenges for investors today is constructing low-risk portfolios that provide the best returns using low-cost funds or ETFs. Doing so requires advisors to define risk as the potential for retirees to fail to achieve their financial goals, instead of as volatility, as it is traditionally measured. I will show how to construct a low-cost portfolio that minimizes this definition of risk while generating a reasonable real return.
Putting GMO’s Ideas to Work: Protected Leveraged Investing
by Geoff Considine,
Fears of market overvaluation lead many advisors to seek to protect against downside movements while retaining as much upside potential as possible. Recent research from GMO illustrates a low-cost way to accomplish this: decreasing equity exposure and concentrating that allocation in high-beta securities.
Howard Marks? Warnings and How to Protect your Portfolio
by Geoff Considine,
Howard Marks, founder and chairman of Oaktree Capital Management, wrote in a recent memo that the biggest danger to investors is their willingness to buy risky assets that are likely to provide low returns. Market conditions may not fully reflect current risk; option prices, for example, are very low. Some firms ? notably PIMCO ? recommend investors buy put options to protect their portfolios. I propose an alternative strategy that will be resilient to the potential shocks of increased volatility and higher interest rates, without incurring the cost of options.
The Forecast for Risk in 2013
by Geoff Considine,
With the new year upon us, pundits are issuing their forecasts of market returns for 2013 and beyond. But returns don't occur in a vacuum ? meeting clients' goals requires an asset allocation that appropriately balances return and risk. So what follows are my predictions for risk across major asset classes, based on a theoretically sound approach that has proven to be reliable in the past.
The Superiority of Dividends: A Comparison of Value Strategies
by Geoff Considine,
Dividend-focused strategies have won the allegiance of many prominent investors, including Rob Arnott, Bill Gross and Jeremy Siegel. Others claim value-based strategies offer superior risk-adjusted returns. Both sides can claim a partial victory in this debate, but I will show that, when understood properly, dividend strategies offer a crucial edge - one that many investors will find attractive.
Is Gluskin's David Rosenberg Right about Utilities?
by Geoff Considine,
They're not the sexiest property on the Monopoly board, but in today's market, there's plenty of evidence mounting that utilities are a great source of income. Indeed, Gluskin Sheff's David Rosenberg made the case for utilities in a recent commentary.
The Ultimate Income Strategy - Higher Yield and Lower Volatility
by Geoff Considine,
Investors, especially those in the de-accumulation phase of their retirement, count on high income and low volatility. Achieving the best possible tradeoff between yield and risk is a major challenge for advisors. Over the last two years, I've shown how to construct a low-risk portfolio - the ultimate income portfolio (UIP) - that yields over 9.0%. Let's look back at how those portfolios performed and the components of this year's UIP.
High Yield and Low Risk: Finding the Best Closed-End Funds
by Geoff Considine,
Yield-starved investors have ventured into exotic - and often risky - assets, including hedge funds, non-traded REITs and private placements. But an asset class that has been around since 1893 offers a compelling combination of low risk and high income. A carefully selected portfolio of closed-end funds (CEFs) will yield 8% with less volatility than the S&P 500.
Finding the Best Dividend Fund
by Geoff Considine,
Assets are flowing into dividend-stock funds. But many experts are warning that those investors are setting themselves up for significant losses. Using an objective methodology that assesses tradeoff between yield and risk, we can determine those funds that investors should prefer - and a few they should avoid.
Why MLPs Belong in Your Portfolio
by Geoff Considine,
One would think that an asset class yielding 7% and carrying less volatility than do equities would be popular with investors. Yet, despite those attributes, master limited partnerships (MLPs) remain unknown or ignored by large numbers of investors. The case for MLPs is compelling, so it's time for a deep examination of the special properties of this asset class.
Gassed Up but No Place to Go
When a great investor points to a vastly underpriced asset, a natural first reaction is to devise the best strategy for buying it. Sometimes, however, the impediments to that strategy prove too great, something anyone will soon discover who listens to Jeremy Grantham's assertion that 'everyone who has a brain should be thinking of how to make money' long-term on natural gas.
?The Greatest Anomaly in Finance'
by Geoff Considine,
If I told you that there is an easy-to-exploit market anomaly that has enabled investors to consistently and substantially outperform the market with less risk for more than four decades, your first instinct might be to roll your eyes. After all, the unending quest to improve returns while lowering risk has yielded countless methods with initial promise that subsequently collapse under further scrutiny.
Do-It-Yourself Equity-Indexed Annuities
Equity indexed annuities offer retirees a compelling combination of guaranteed income and participation in the market?s upside. But EIAs are exceedingly complex and have been the subject of numerous regulatory challenges. For those who seek a simpler alternative with a comparable return profile, a combination of fixed-income securities and options is viable choice.
The Danger in European Stocks
European equity prices, depressed by fears of a sovereign debt crisis, are cheap to such a degree that William Bernstein, author of The Intelligent Asset Allocator, called them a true bargain. Income-oriented investors, in particular, may be tempted by 4.2% dividend yields and a market-wide P/E ratio of approximately 11. My analysis, however, contradicts Bernstein's and shows the underlying risk those investments carry.
Reexamining Bill Gross' Decision to Sell Treasury Bonds
by Geoff Considine,
Bill Gross made headlines in February by asserting that Treasury bonds were not providing enough yield to make them worth the risk and reducing his allocation to zero in the PIMCO Total Return Fund. The subsequent rally forced him to admit his mistake in August, but by then his fund was trailing 90% of its peers and having its worst year since 1995. I will examine Gross' decision in retrospect, to illustrate its tactical and strategic costs and benefits for his shareholders.
Why High-Yield Bonds Make Sense Today
None other than Gluskin Sheff's Dave Rosenberg, the widely followed analyst who was been consistently bearish in the current market cycle, said last week that high-yield bonds are 'a good place to be right now.' Recent price declines have made them attractive in the short term, and their risk-adjusted returns make them attractive to longer-term strategic investors.
Improving on the Ultimate Income Portfolio
by Geoff Considine,
The Ultimate Income Portfolio, which was published in this newsletter July 6 of last year, has delivered the risk-adjusted returns that I projected. Here's a detailed look at how last year's portfolio performed and several ways it can be improved in today's environment.
An Important Challenge to ?Stocks for the Long Run?
by Geoff Considine,
Jeremy Siegel's dictum - to invest in stocks for the long run - faces a new challenge. A recent paper by Robert Stambaugh, a Wharton colleague, and Lubos Pastor of the University of Chicago says that once you take into account the uncertainty of estimating future returns, stocks are not nearly as attractive to retirement-oriented investors as Siegel has claimed.
How to Build a Low-Risk High-Income Portfolio
by Geoff Considine,
Prominent investors, including Bill Gross and Warren Buffett, now say that the yields on long-term government debt do not justify the risks. But is this perception correct? I offer a way to answer that question - and to construct a low-risk high-income portfolio - using the prices of put options to derive the true risk levels of various asset classes.
Managing Exposure to Extreme Markets
by Geoff Considine,
Volatility in the equity markets has subsided, courtesy of a strong bull market and fading memories of the 2008 financial crisis. Risks remain, however, ranging from the turmoil in northern Africa to sovereign debt instability in Europe. Investors can take advantage of the complacency in the equity markets by purchasing inexpensive insurance against adverse events.
What Investors Should Fear in the Permanent Portfolio
Over the last decade, the assets of the fund PRPFX have swelled from $50 million to more than $10 billion. The concept underlying that fund, Harry Browne's Permanent Portfolio (PP), has rewarded PRPFX investors with attractive risk-adjusted returns. Those investors, however, may want to rethink their exposure - especially if PRPFX is the core of a retirement-oriented strategy.
Optimizing Your Fixed Income Allocation
Here's a little-known fact: The traditional 60/40 portfolio, when using the aggregate-bond index for its fixed-income allocation, has a 99% correlation to the returns of the S&P 500. One way to overcome the limited diversification value offered by the aggregate index is to use a risk-parity approach. In this article, I explore the concept of risk parity in asset allocation and how it provides value for portfolio management.
Building a Better Income Portfolio
One of the greatest concerns for income-oriented investors is the possibility that dividends will be cut. The financial crisis showed that traditional metrics, such as a stock's dividend history and its payout ratio, failed to warn investors of impending dividend cuts. By evaluating stocks based on volatility, however, investors can select securities that are more likely to maintain or improve their dividend rates.
Flaws in Vanguard?s Withdrawal Strategy: Income versus Total-Return Portfolios
Vanguard advertises that its mission is to simplify investors' retirement decisions. In a recently published study, however, it oversimplified the critical choices investors and their advisors face in constructing a portfolio for the withdrawal phase of retirement.
A Better Way to Invest in Gold
In the year since Geoff Considine last wrote about gold, underlying prices have risen 24%, leading to several important questions - including whether his advice of a year ago still holds today. We look closely at how a direct investment in GLD performed as compared to a bond-plus-call-option strategy, and which conditions favor each strategy.
Misconceptions about Risk and Return Uncovered
Our beliefs about risk and return determine how we construct portfolios and manage risk. Research over the last decade suggests that a number of the ideas on which many investors and advisors rely lead to portfolios that are too highly exposed to market risk. In this article, we review a number of ideas that determine how we select assets and how we determine what to expect from those assets.
Why Immediate Annuities Make Sense
As they approach retirement, baby boomers are increasingly concerned about how best to manage their portfolios during the decumulation phase of their lives. One of the challenges for advisors and investors is understanding what role annuities should play, if any. Geoff Considine shows that immediate annuities should be an important part of a decumulation strategy.
The Ultimate Income Portfolio
Conventional approaches to constructing income-oriented portfolios use either bonds or high-yield stocks. In this article, Geoff Considine explores a compelling alternative to that approach: a carefully selected model high-yield portfolio consisting primarily of low-beta, high-dividend stocks, against which the investor sells call options.
Inexpensive Protection Against Rising Rates
As is too often the case, the biggest risks are those that we discount. The possibility of a surge in interest rates appears to be today's ignored risk, despite the warnings of many experts, including David Einhorn, Bill Gross, and Seth Klarman. We discuss an inexpensive strategy to protect your portfolios from the tail risk of rising rates.
Three Ways to Improve Safe Withdrawal Rates
Using Monte Carlo analysis, Geoff Considine examines three ways safe withdrawal rates can be increased beyond the baseline 4% guideline. He compares and quantifies the benefits of increasing diversification beyond equities and bonds, increasing allocations to fixed income, and employing tactical asset allocation.
Lessons from Yale?s Endowment Model and the Financial Crisis
The Yale endowment's performance during the financial crisis was worse than what would be mathematically expected, but not significantly enough to question the endowment model's tenets. Moreover, Yale's performance and philosophy suggest two very important lessons for advisors and investors- to diversify beyond equities and fixed income, and that some illiquid asset classes can be an important source of alpha.
Asset Allocation for Grantham?s Seven Lean Years
Followers of Jeremy Grantham know his consistently accurate long-term forecasts well, as well as his ability to identify and avoid asset bubbles and steer clients into high-performing asset classes. Grantham's prescience is remarkable but not irreplicable. Geoff Considine shows that his Monte Carlo simulations nearly match Grantham's forecasts, and he reviews the implications for asset allocations.
Diversification Really Does Pay Off
The last decade severely tested investors' belief in the value of diversification and strategic asset allocation, leading some in the financial media to assert that diversification and asset allocation failed and were worthless during the crash of 2007-2008. Now is an ideal moment to look back and assess the carnage.
Risk Management through Costless Collars
by Geoff Considine,
Nassim Taleb and Zvi Bodie are among those who advocate a wealth management strategy that includes options. Despite their evangelism, though, options are rarely a part of retirement portfolios. The costless collar, a straightforward options strategy, gives investors the upside of an asset class (such as equities) while absolutely limiting the downside risk.
Managing Downside Risk in Retirement Planning
Boston University professor Zvi Bodie advocates a retirement investment strategy that offers investors some of the upside potential in equities tempered with downside protection against bear markets and a low-risk inflation hedge via heavy allocation to TIPS. Geoff Considine examines Bodie's strategy and shows that it will work very effectively, including in a bear market like the one just experienced.
Strategic and Tactical Perspectives on Gold
There are good reasons for investors to maintain a long-term strategic allocation to gold, which has clear, positive portfolio benefits (due to low correlation to other asset classes). That said, gold is in an historic run-up in value and has been generating unsustainably high returns. Because of its high price and rising volatility, Geoff Considine argues there is significant tactical risk in gold.
Are REITs Now Undervalued?
The last couple of years have been rough for real estate, but there was a time not too long ago when it seemed that this was a 'special' asset class, with REITs providing valuable diversification benefits and consistently high returns. Do today's low valuations represent an opportunity to buy? Can investors expect a return to low correlations for REITs with the major equity market indexes?
Results 1–50
of 53 found.
