April 2017

These Are the Goods

Articles An anomaly is an excess return that cannot be explained by exposure to risk. By Corey Hoffstein The next time some slick salesperson points to the P/E ratio and tells you it’s a great time to buy stocks, ask to see their earnings. By Nir Kaissar Father Time is unforgiving to those who wait. By…

How Social Changed Our World

So this happened today. Wow, we’ve come a long way. I vividly remember the first time I heard about Twitter, it was March of 2009. This experience is burned into my memory because I was so turned off by it. I was sitting in my dining room, probably eating a bowl of cereal and flipping…

A Tidal Wave is Coming

In light of the French election over the weekend and with global stocks up bigly, we’re no doubt in for a tidal wave of narratives connecting fundamentals to price. Sharing stories is in the fabric of our DNA as human beings and as investors. Andrew Lo has a great example of the biological reasons for why…

These Are the Goods

Articles Guaranteed income often comes at a very expensive price. By Tony Isola There is a theme to Vanguard’s top sellers: breadth. Four of the company’s five most-popular funds during this year’s first quarter have “total” in their names. By John Rekenthaler Maintaining an edge is unrealistic, but finding new edges on a regular basis…

The Other Side

If you were on the sidelines during the 25 best-performing days since 1970, your returns would have been mush. This is an example of a factual statement that isn’t truthful, because not even the worst market timer in the world could invest for nearly 12,000 days and miss the 25 best. In this example, we need to…

Today in Market History

26 years ago today, while I was watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the Dow Jones Industrial Average crossed 3,000 for the first time ever. I love looking back at what the newspapers were saying following market events and milestones. This was not the high. Not even close.  Even without the Dow topping 3,000, individual investors…

These Are the Goods

Articles You should think of buying investments like you buy food–do it often. Make it a habit to invest your money like you make it a habit to pay your rent/mortgage. By of Dollars and Data A one percentage point increase in ETF ownership also experience a 14% reduction in the average magnitude of their future…

The Skew

“Even if there weren’t fees and expenses, the odds are you’ll underperform.” -Hendrik Bessembinder An excellent piece from Bloomberg came out over the weekend, The Math Behind Futility, which looks beyond the usual explanations as to why the majority of professional stock pickers fail to keep up with an index. No, it’s not just the fees or the…

These Are the Goods

Articles   Successful investors can differentiate business performance from stock performance and can take advantage of those investors who can’t. By Ian Cassel The inventory of homes for sale in Minneapolis dropped by about 25% in February compared with a year earlier, while the median sale price rose by 7.6% to $223,000. By Laura Kusisto …

The Stock Market Equivalent of the Cal Ripken Streak

For more than 16 years, Cal Ripken suited up for a record 2,632 consecutive games. I find it challenging to watch nine innings, he was on the field for 24,000 of them. This streak will never be broken, ever. A similarly amazing streak occurred in the stock market in the nineties, which has the potential to…