While most Americans support providing free medical care to those who need it most, not imposing an additional cost on the middle class has never been accomplished by any country that has universal health care.
Baby Boomers are arriving at retirement with large accumulations that have not yet been exposed to federal income tax. I describe a program that synchronizes the distribution of pre-tax assets with availability of generationally-low tax rates, while keeping the dictates of Medicare, Social Security and the governing IRS tax code firmly in view.
Models can help advisors streamline portfolio management while retaining the level of discretion appropriate for their practice.
For SRI optimized index funds, stable ownership of a range of companies and industries provides a platform for helping investors integrate their values into their investment decisions.
Earlier this year, passive management was attacked in two high-profile articles. Those criticisms were proven to be false – and driven by active managers seeking to protect their livelihoods. But that still left the question, which I now examine, of whether flows to passive funds have increased certain risks.
-U.S. stocks entered November in the process of finally breaking out of their post-January 2018 trading range. -Along with new highs has come elevated optimistic sentiment; a near-term warning sign. -Spread between the “smart money” and “dumb money” recently reached an extreme.
College is expensive. We all know that – and that is why parents come to financial advisors to talk about how they’ll pay for it. What you and your clients’ families may not be aware of is that the posted tuitions are rarely the price anyone pays. College tuition discounts vary widely and the methodology used to calculate tuitions is not disclosed by any college.
The economic calendar is normal with a focus on housing. Some will be parsing the Fed minutes while others watch the impeachment hearings. This week’s topic may not be a media focus for the week ahead, but it gets constant attention. With a government shutdown and the debt ceiling on the agenda, let’s seize the moment and ask: Is it time to worry about debt? I suspect that many readers believe it is way past time!
S&P’s SPIVA scorecard provides persuasive evidence of the futility of active management. But its most recent scorecard illustrates something else – why active managers underperform even in the best performing asset class.
Throughout this 10-year bull market, investors have been overly cautious toward equity markets and ignored “new highs”. Now in this late-cycle market environment, investors are piling into cyclicality, private equity and venture capital. It’s time to stop saying everyone is so bearish.
A brief monthly update on what's happening in the municipal bond market.
RIA investment platforms – specifically the vehicles and tools they use to manage client portfolios – are about to undergo the most profound change in a generation. With the race to zero for trading stocks, mutual funds are becoming outdated. Customized portfolios of individual stocks will be the winner.
As two recent commentaries demonstrate, in their zeal to promote their agendas, asset managers are claiming that the humble 60/40 portfolio is doomed to the dustbin. But their analysis is flawed. The 60/40 will outlive us all.
If you’re an advisor looking to differentiate your practice from others, consider this article to be your first step toward a better understanding of impact investing.
Read Harold Evensky's latest Newsletter.
The first Litman Gregory Masters Fund was launched December 31, 1996. Litman Gregory Masters Equity was created because, as financial advisors, the team at Litman Gregory wanted more control over the mutual funds they used in its client portfolios, and it had specific ideas about how to build a “better fund.” Since then, Litman Gregory has been a pioneer in the development of liquid alternative funds and, in 2018, launched a high-income alternatives fund.
Listen... do you hear that? A bubble is popping. No, we aren’t talking about the stock market... well, at least not the stock market you’re probably thinking about. Generally, public companies have the economics to back up their lofty valuations, even if those valuations are, well, lofty. It is the market for private companies, specifically those backed by venture capital (VC), that looks truly bubblelicious.
Chris Davis is chairman of Davis Advisors, a firm founded by his father that has followed the same value-investing discipline for its 50-year history. In this interview, Chris discusses the exceptional opportunities he is finding among the financial stocks, how financial advisors can add the greatest value and the biggest changes he has seen over his career.
What was once the world’s largest commodities hedge fund is officially closing, creating new opportunities for some investors to get exposure to raw materials and mining using other funds. According to Bloomberg, Blenheim Capital Management’s CEO and chief investment officer, Willem Kooyker, is calling it quits after a 50-year money management career that made him a legend in oil, metals and agricultural markets.
If you’re committed to helping your clients achieve their financial outcomes, don’t avoid discussing taxes.
Never in my investment career can I recall political “happenings” carrying so much weight in daily market movements. Today’s markets are whipsawed by political slings and arrows, often in the form of tweets or breaking news reports. And “investors” increasingly are reacting impulsively to a reality that’s shifting minute-by-minute.
Do factor premiums survive implementation costs? To answer this question, I’ll examine the returns of live mutual funds to see if they have been successful at capturing the returns of small-cap and value premiums.
When baby-boomer adults were in their twenties, we sang along with Mark Knopfler and Dire Straits. Their song, “Money for Nothing” defined the era of music videos. We got cable in 1981 and will admit that we were glued to the TV watching music videos of the bands and performers we loved.
A review of the risks which keep the markets range-bound. Investors are bearish, but remain aggressively allocated.
Clients have started commenting on the connection between my new, expensive car (which I am excited about) and their fees.
As we look ahead to the closing months of 2019, most of the year’s volatility drivers remain in place. With that in mind, we believe now may be the time to adopt a more defensive posture without deviating from your long-term strategic asset allocation.
Lon Erickson, CFA, is a portfolio manager and managing director for Thornburg Investment Management and oversees five of its fixed income mutual funds. Erickson says that rates could be as low as 1.1% in the next year, and he explains why a collaborative, bottom-up construction process will benefit advisors and their clients.
For those advisors seeking to outsource their portfolio construction, the proliferation of model portfolios leaves them with an overwhelming challenge to properly analyze the thousands of choices. Indeed, the fate of those who fail to overcome that challenge will be reminiscent of that of Blockbuster Videos.
As the financial markets enter what I expect to be a rather disruptive completion to the recent speculative half-cycle, it will be helpful for investors to consider certain propositions that are readily available from history, rather than insisting on re-learning them the hard way.
Yields have declined sharply over the course of the year. The 10-year yield has dropped about 100 basis points; the 30-year about 80 basis points; and short-term rates are down about 50 basis points. Can rates go any lower? How should advisors position their clients in this environment?
For reasons unknown, October has historically been the most volatile month for the stock market—by a goodly margin. Between 1950 and the end of 2017, the S&P 500 Index saw as many as 362 trading days during the month of October in which the market moved up or down more than 1 percent.
Covered call strategies in a closed-end fund may help long-term investors manage short-term volatility.
Learn the potential benefits of a harmonized investment approach to your organization's DB and DC plans.
It’s only natural for someone invested in a poorly performing active equity mutual fund to wonder if it’s time to make a change. Should an investor sell a fund if it trails its benchmark for a year? Three years? Five years?
In this issue, Research Affiliates discusses why its contrarian philosophy may add value over the long term and how the growing likelihood of a global economic slowdown is affecting positioning.
In the past three years, oil and gas discoveries made by conventional means have fallen to an incredible seven-decade low. What’s more, a “significant rebound is not expected,” says IHS Markit. Find out what’s driving discoveries lower!
It has been a good year for U.S. investors. The global economic slowdown and geopolitical turmoil created a nearly irreversible thirst for super safe assets...
When Carl Gugasian of Dewey, Cheatham & Howe rates Bianchi Corp. a “Strong Buy,” whose interest is that in? We dig into the conflict between WallStreet and You.
Michael Milken rose to the top of Wall Street by way of the Wharton Business School with Drexel Burnham Lambert in tow. Milken’s work at Wharton was founded on the core theory that bond investors were rewarded by taking junk bond risk.
John Langbein may not be a familiar name to financial advisors, but he has had a significant and lasting impact on our profession. On September 16, he was awarded the Frankel Fiduciary Prize.
The price of gold has beaten the S&P 500 Index over a number of different time periods, even the century (so far!). The yellow metal, however, has also outperformed arguably the greatest living investor, Warren Buffett.
While the clear majority of mutual funds provide daily liquidity, it's not guaranteed. This is why understanding the potential risks to liquidity is key.
Smart beta direct indexing is an increasingly accessible implementation route that accommodates tax-loss harvesting and customizations based on client preferences and circumstances.
Private equity investing has created enormous wealth for those fortunate to be the general partners of a fund. But for regular investors – the limited partners – recent studies show that when properly adjusted for risks PE returns lag those of the less risky public markets. Moreover, there is little evidence that investors can identify, in advance, the very few PE funds that will outperform.
Once a year, I post a list of investing rules of great investors in history. Experience is a valuable commodity and these rules can keep you from learning the hard way.
Taxes are going to cost you a lot this year. By how much, you're wondering? Let’s start first by looking back.
Value investing is poised to dominate growth investing based on a historical comparison of valuation metrics. The gulf between the P/E ratios of value growth and growth stocks has never been this wide.
What’s the difference between a tax-aware, tax-efficient or tax-managed approach to investing? See why it matters and why we believe managing for taxes can make a difference for investors.
There are a number of lessons investors can learn from the sensation that is the Popeyes chicken sandwich. One of those lessons is that people often put a premium on scarcity.
