Knowledge Base
Our Published Works
Three Questions You Should Never Ask an Advisor
We’ve long realized that when someone casually meets a financial advisor they nearly always ask one of three questions: What are your favorite stocks or funds? What do you think the markets going to do? What do you think interest rates are going to do?
Farce Called Intuition
Adult investors are not always diligent about correcting bad behavior. As a result, overconfidence and reliance upon intuition play very large roles in the systemic erosion of family portfolio.
Down Markets and the Classic Mistake
The fastest way to make a bad market worse for you and your family is to panic and suddenly act as if markets don’t periodically go down. Have confidence.
The Plight of Investor X
You will never know which stocks will perform and which won’t, so you shouldn’t always follow the crowd when it comes to investing.
Feedback of the Worst Kind
Should I have bought that stock? Did I buy the right fund? Is this portfolio manager the best choice? Unfortunately, these are the questions that investors often ask themselves when they should be asking themselves if their assets in aggregate are properly aligned with their goals.
For All You Market Watchers Out There
Watching the stock market creates lots of bad habits, not the worst of which is time wasting. Let’s face it— it’s not as if you are waiting to make a financial decision based on what the market does today.
Variable Annuities
At one point or another, most of us have been pitched by a smooth-talking insurance salesperson singing the high praises of the eminently popular variable annuity.
Supposedly Savvy
Around the office we’ve had a good laugh at the financial paparazzi and their ongoing efforts to tell us where “savvy” investors are moving their money in response to this week’s financial events.
Stop Kidding Yourself
We’re frequently amused by the plethora of rules of thumb that the personal finance industry throws at the investing public. Perhaps the most infamous are varying versions of: “you’ll need 80% of your peak preretirement income during your retirement.”
Resilient Investor
We’ve said before that it’s okay to feel uneasy, dispirited, or even fearful as markets move through their occasional and expected down cycles.
Five-Hundred
Comparisons to the S&P 500 are incredibly pervasive in the financial services industry, and in nearly all cases we find these comparisons are completely unjustified.
How Much Are You Paying
Let’s give the investing public some credit. They’ve come a long way with their understanding of the various commissions that accompany the purchase of investment products.
Market Magician
The efficiency of markets worldwide has continued to improve as almost any investor with a web connection can access the real-time information.