“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

The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions. –     Leonardo da Vinci What better idea than to bring up the Seven Deadly Sins during the holidays?  In our constant need to Google everything, absorbing as much data as possible, we came across this graphic created by a Jennifer Hagey.  We do not know...Read More

“Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed” – Sir Francis Bacon One quote, two stories, and then the point to this newletter. This quote from Sir Francis Bacon sticks in our minds a lot these days. It fits so many situations as we see numerous examples of people putting their intentions before reason. This leads...Read More

“Half a century of analysis has yet to fully answer why investors place such a large proportion of their funds with active equity managers, given the discouraging evidence on the latter’s ability to add net value” – Rotman International Journal of Pension Management With this being our inaugural newsletter, it seems fitting that we open...Read More

If your advisor has decided to own individual stocks rather than either mutual funds or ETFs (Exchanged Trade Funds) for your portfolio, I think you need to ask Why?  To justify the fees he is charging is a cynical (and likely truthful) answer. The costs to do it well. Large firms spend large sums of...Read More