“This is not a crisis, its turbulence.”  – Fauzi Ichsan, Head of the Indonesia Deposit Insurance Corp The time between our last newsletter and today feels like an eternity, yet is only 30 days.  In that time, we have witnessed a dramatic increase in market volatility (a swift fall followed by a uneven rebuild in...Read More

China recently elected to devalue their currency causing volatility in most global markets. One benefit of this event was that it removed Greece from the headlines. Although our belief was that too much attention was being placed on Greece and its implications for the European Union, it was welcome to see it move to a...Read More

Behavioral economics is a well researched field of study and one we find important as it pertains to acting as a fiduciary and a steward of capital.  In this newsletter, we reflect on recent research into this topic and attempt to blend it with recent market actions hitting the globe as we speak.   Monkey...Read More

Determining the characteristics of superior investing is not a new idea. We hazard a guess that since the first dollar went into the public markets, individuals have spent considerable effort determining short cuts and tricks to identify the items that drive outperformance. Within the modern investment world, both academic and industry attention has been focused...Read More

“Equity investing is about what could happen, not what has” – Michael Goldstein We have highlighted on many occasions the three facets of investing that most impact performance: market participation, asset allocation, and cost.  We can further segment costs into three areas: Direct costs of management fees and investment vehicle fees that we attempt to...Read More

“A person saving for retirement who chooses low-cost investments could have a standard of living throughout retirement more than 20% higher than that of a comparable investor in high-cost investments.”   – William Sharpe Mutual funds that rely on stock-based investing where once a great idea. However, this investment vehicle’s time has come and gone. Their...Read More

“And the wild things roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws.”   – Where the Wild Things Are Inflation, and our fear of it, is a highly debated topic these days.  It is worthy of attention given the role it plays in our economy....Read More

“The boiling frog story is a wide spread anecdote describing a frog slowly being boiled alive. The premise is that if a frog is placed in boiling water, it will jump out, but if it is placed in cold water that is slowly heated, it will not perceive the danger and will be cooked to...Read More

Interviewer: “if you were to be stranded on an island and could have three people join you, who would they be?” (Expecting the answer to include one or more of George Washington, Albert Einstein, Great Grandfather, Barack Obama, Francis Bacon or the Dalai Lama) Lengthy Pause. Interviewee: “two hula dancers and a coconut chef.” As...Read More

“An approximate answer to the right problem is worth a good deal more than an exact answer to an approximate problem.” — John Tukey   Most financial professionals preach the positives of diversification.  They promote it as much for risk mitigation as they do for obtaining superior returns.  During prior times with more separate economies,...Read More