Nobel laureate Milton Friedman is generally credited with stating, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.” Actually, if you know what you are doing, you can get a free lunch in investing. Unfortunately, most investors get stuck with very expensive meals. Diversification is a free lunch Diversification is a free lunch. It basically refers to the…
My wife and I are setting up a customs screening station in our driveway. No, we’re not starting an international airport. And it’s not for solicitors, strangers or gift-bearing guests. It’s for us and our stuff. From now on, before anything new comes into the house, resident buyers will need to answer a series of…
Charleston, South Carolina. According to Travel + Leisure magazine, “Charleston is a remarkably dynamic place, so it’s no surprise that it has achieved its highest ranking ever in our survey as the year’s best city in the world.” It’s the first time a U.S. city has received the top honor, but Charleston ranked No. 2 last year and…
Bond ladders are frequently criticized in the financial media and even among some professional advisors (who, I would point out, are often able to use only bond mutual funds or ETFs). Earlier this week, we corrected some common misperceptions regarding individually tailored laddered municipal bond portfolios. Today we’ll move on to the many advantages of owning…
Regular pre-tax deductions toward a retirement plan balance figure into a lot of employees’ paychecks, but many people don’t fully understand how the fund they’re contributing to works. Tim Maurer debunks ten common myths about 401(k) plans. Find it on CNBC.com By clicking on any of the links above, you acknowledge that they are solely…
It has been well-documented that profitability is positively correlated with stock returns. Firms with higher profits earn higher returns. The profitability factor has also been shown to eliminate most of the well-known anomalies that can represent problems for the Fama-French four-factor model (i.e., returns that cannot be explained by exposure to the factors of beta,…
I fear the clever marketing in the traditional financial services industry continues to confuse many people. They see the title “financial adviser,” “financial planner” or “financial” anything and expect to receive unbiased advice. This concern makes me think of the sketch above, which I shared many years ago in a different context. Some expectations of…
Early Friday morning, a friend texted me. Here’s what he said: “Will you come talk to my co-workers?! They are talking about stopping their 401(k) contributions because of what’s going on! Driving me nuts!” Still not quite awake, I replied, “What?” Within seconds, he replied, “Stock market fell 500 points this morning, Carl! It’s all…
I often hear criticisms from the financial media and some professional advisors about the use of bond ladders. Whenever the criticism comes from professional advisors, however, I’ve noticed it generally involves firms that use only bond mutual funds or ETFs instead of individual, tailored bond portfolios, whether in the form of a bond ladder or…
It’s been well-documented that, in equity investing, assets have earned premiums because they are exposed to the risks of a certain factor. Given that the literature provides us with a veritable factor “zoo” (there are more than 300), for investors to consider adding exposure to a factor, it should meet the following criteria: Persistent: It…
My wife and I are setting up a customs screening station in our driveway. No, we’re not starting an international airport. And it’s not for solicitors, strangers or gift-bearing guests. It’s for us and our stuff. From now on, before anything new comes into the house, resident buyers will need to answer a series of…
Charleston, South Carolina. According to Travel + Leisure magazine, “Charleston is a remarkably dynamic place, so it’s no surprise that it has achieved its highest ranking ever in our survey as the year’s best city in the world.” It’s the first time a U.S. city has received the top honor, but Charleston ranked No. 2…
There’s extensive literature documenting that value stocks (the stocks of companies with low prices relative to a valuation metric, such as earnings, book value, cash flow or sales) possess a strong, persistent and pervasive tendency to outperform growth stocks. While there’s no debate about the existence of the value premium, there’s a major debate about…
The world of finance and asset pricing used to be fairly simple. At first, there was just the single-factor capital asset pricing model, with market risk (beta) as the sole factor to explain the differences in returns of diversified portfolios. Over time, the working model evolved into a still relatively simple four-factor model, adding value,…
“Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.” So reads a Solomonic proverb penned in the 10th century B.C. Consider with me, however, a contemporary application of this ancient wisdom, especially in the realm of personal finance. Hope Deferred “We’ve got to apologize, Tim,” said a financial planning client…