We update a spending-power indicator that has an excellent track record predicting the economy.

When Donald Trump was campaigning, he said he would eliminate the national debt in eight years. But it has increased by $2 trillion in the first two years of his presidency, leading Jeffrey Gundlach to conclude that we are “on the road to a large debt problem.”

As tempting as the proposition might be, there isn’t convincing evidence that a style-timing strategy will be profitable.

As I wrote on Friday, the weak economic outlook from the ECB, continuing reduced earnings estimates, worries about the Mueller Report, renewed Chinese trade war tensions, and the underperformance of the cyclical sectors bringing on cries of recession all proved too much for stocks...

Want to build a diversified, tax-efficient, and low-cost income fund for your clients? Here’s a surprising way to do that with a broad-based index fund like the S&P 500.

In this issue, Research Affiliates assesses risks facing the All Asset strategies and shares insights from its CEO on fostering a winning corporate culture.

I found more value in the Finance Sector than I did in any other sector that I screened. All in all, I identified 131 attractively valued companies out of the 1,888 companies in the Finance Sector.

Gene Podkaminer oversees one of the largest offerings of multi-asset products in the financial industry. He is a senior vice president in head of multi-asset research strategies at Franklin Templeton. In this interview, he discusses the three trends that will drive investment returns in 2019.

Joel Bruckenstein and I have completed and published the T3/Inside Information Software survey, which addressed the three issues that most advisory firms want to know.

The Tweedy, Browne Global Value Fund (TBGVX) has an exceptional track record, outperforming its benchmark and peer-group average by over 300 basis points annually since its inception 25 years ago. I interviewed the members of Tweedy, Browne’s investment committee.

Sacagawea lived from May 1788 to December 1812. She was a Lemhi Shoshone woman who is best known for her help guiding the Lewis and Clark Expedition in achieving their mission objectives by exploring thousands of miles from North Dakota to the Pacific Ocean.

There’s a major misalignment of expectations between the client and advisor when it comes to risk, and it’s not the client’s job to solve the problem. The whole risk conversation has to change.

I was traveling last week seeing portfolio managers and doing gigs for our financial advisors and their clients. I have been doing such events for much of the past six months. The recurring question from clients is, “What about the national debt?”

Caveat emptor: current technical supply and demand flows favor issuers more than buyers. But diligent, disciplined investors can always find attractively priced, fundamentally sound bonds.

Corporate results in the fourth quarter of 2018 were good, but not great: sales grew 6% and earnings rose 32%, but profit margins fell hard. Expectations for 10% earnings growth in 2019 have already been revised down to 5%. This still looks too optimistic...

Despite Friday’s Fling, there was a very negative NYSE breadth divergence which appeared during the final two hours of trading. It feels like a blow off trading top to me.

We take issue with some of the recent reporting on passive investing. In the spirit of Bogle’s own approach of straight talk and no-nonsense thinking, we felt compelled to offer a differing viewpoint.

A powerful alternative to the ubiquitous style grid is to organize managers by the investment strategy that a fund pursues. Once constructed, these statistically valid peer groups provide a comprehensive framework for portfolio construction, manager evaluation, fund selection, benchmarking and, quite surprisingly, stock selection and managing market exposure.

When considering the prospects for India's stock market, key factors of performance are the growth outlook and underlying valuations.

According to research from Cerulli, nearly half of advisors use a model portfolio to manage $2.7 trillion in assets. We’ll discuss how those models are permeating all aspects of investment management in the financial advisory industry.

A popular song and a recent article in The Wall Street Journal reminded us of Edmund Burke’s quote and how important history is to the long-term success of common stock ownership.

We revisit this “Who do you trust” meme this morning because of what I have been saying the past few weeks. After identifying the selling climax low of December 24, when 48.5% of stocks made new lows, I recorded two 90% upside days (90% of volume and upticks came on the upside).

In this issue, Research Affiliates assesses the potential impact of a bear market in U.S. stocks on emerging markets and discusses regulatory reporting requirements.

Public pension plans are destroying investors’ wealth by allocating assets to separate account managers, private equity and hedge funds.

Early on in my career, I learned there are four psychological reasons investors buy (listed from strongest to weakest).

Today’s late-cycle environment gives investors an opportunity to re-evaluate the risk and return potential of their portfolios. Since the depth of the financial crisis, core stock and bond allocations have delivered exceptional returns with modest volatility. But future returns will likely be muted even as risk increases.

While investors should be cognizant of the complexities and risks around Brexit, they should be just as aware of the opportunities in select U.K.-based businesses.

Unexamined thinking about where numbers come from and how they work will lead to dangerous math mistakes. This article will show how to make your advice less precise but more helpful.

So, I need to apologize to everyone for not being able to do a verbal recorded call last week, or write a missive the last three sessions of the week. The problem was that while in NYC my media events began around 6:00 a.m., followed by more media events, then it was portfolio manager meetings.

How can an individual build a defined-benefit element into his or her retirement-income portfolio? Is there a way to structure a floor income during retirement that can’t be outlived?

Last year was a watershed in the size of official gold purchases, as central banks added 651.5 tonnes to their holdings. Not only is this a remarkable 74 percent change from 2017, but it’s also the most on record going back to 1971.

Is money market fund AUM growth signaling changing expectations?

Harold Evensky's quarterly letter to his readers.

We’ve collected the following tributes to Jack Bogle from among the authors who contribute to Advisor Perspectives and other prominent individuals in the investment industry.

Investors are likely looking at their portfolios and trying to determine how the volatile fourth quarter impacted their returns and how it impacted progress toward their financial goals. Having the market (Russell 3000® Index) pull back -14% in a single quarter and drop -5% for the year is tough, but for taxable investors, the possible tax hit will add insult to injury.

"Time is Archimedes’ Lever in Investing - Archimedes is often quoted as saying, 'Give me a lever long enough and I can move the earth.' In investing, that lever is time. The length of time investments will be held, the period of time over which investment results will be measured and judged, is the single most powerful factor in any investment program.

Global airlines are expected to log their 10th straight year of profitability—an industry first. And with incomes expanding worldwide, air travel demand is projected to outpace economic growth for the next couple of decades.

In a new quarterly letter to GMO’s clients, head of asset allocation Ben Inker looks back on a confounding 2018 and discusses how to assemble a portfolio of attractive assets looking ahead.

Will emerging markets stocks rebound in 2019? Attractive valuations, strong forecast earnings growth, structural reforms, and an abating dollar headwind suggest they will.

Asset allocation proposals--helping an investor visualize how a particular asset allocation can best help them meet their goals--are a mainstay of winning new clients. But proposals can also be used to generate new business from existing clients. One way is through introducing the concept of asset location: allocating assets across the various accounts within a household to be more tax-efficient.

Ned Davis wrote the book “Being Right or Making Money” in 1991. As most of you know, Ned is one of the best on Wall Street. The book resides on my desk, because I often refer to it.

Alma Volker scribbled the note, quoted above, in the margin of a 1911 economics textbook, Outlines of Economics, written by Vassar College Professor Herbert Elmer Mills. Later her son, Paul Volker, who has served six presidents over his long career in public service, shared his regret of never discussing economics with his Mom in his recent book Keeping At It.

It appears the “Powell Put” has been exercised as the Fed chief declares no “pre-set” course on rates and no “hesitation” to change its balance sheet runoff. But does the economy still need Fed accommodation, or do markets just want it?

2018 will be broadly remembered as a year when nothing worked and daily stock market volatility spiked. This contrasted with 2017 where seemingly everything pushed higher, and volatility was low. But in 2018, nearly every single asset class and all but one major stock market index (Brazil) around the globe posted negative returns.

Stock market participants for most of the past few years have eschewed protection. It was all about making large amount of gains. Almost every advisor lost clients from “cocktail party” conversations about who had made the most money recently.

Recently, much has been written, and said, about a retest. The reference is about the major indices pulling back to their recent December closing lows, creating a double-bottom in the charts.

Everyone knows how to win. Few know how to lose. Yet the secret to making money in the various markets is knowing how to lose. How to control your losses.

Today I’ll look at the conventional wisdom that the tax burden of an investment strategy increases with its turnover. In addition, I’ll discuss why short selling is perceived to be particularly tax inefficient.

Jeffrey Gundlach said that 2019 will mark the start of a period when bond markets must reckon with the rising federal deficit. In his most passionate comments ever on this topic, he said the exploding national debt and liabilities involving pension funds, state and local government governments and Social Security have reached a stage that is “totally unthinkable.”

Keeping an eye on how the municipal bond calendar will influence new issues and investing opportunities is wise advice. With the muni market expected to remain robust in 2019, investors and their advisors need to watch the calendar for new issues that best meet their specific financial goals and investment strategies.