Ben Carlson recently wrote an article for the American Association of Individual Inventors that discussed the process for Defining Your Investment Philosophy. Within his piece, Carlson noted 10 Questions to Help Define Your Investment Philosophy. One of the key tenets of his article is that most investors get into trouble by the constant switching of investing strategies. I believe that everyone … Read More
When Risk and Returns Really Start to Matter
I often tell new or prospective clients that investment management is the sexy part of the many facets of wealth management that I work on. For most clients, it is investment returns that get their attention. But as I go on to explain what it is that I really do and how I help people figure out where they want … Read More
How Much Diversification is Enough?
I have talked quite a bit lately about diversification, especially holding a larger portion of cash than usual. As most of you know, I run most of my client portfolios with a minimal amount of positions compared to most managers, especially mutual funds and ETFs. Most of the research that I have done on the topic of diversification indicates that to have … Read More
Corrections are a time to get things right…again
As we kick off another volatile week on Wall Street (to the downside as volatility can also mean to the upside) I came across two great articles last week to provide some perspective on the current equity market situation; Barry Ritholtz’s weekly column at the Washington Post and a WSJ article by Geoffrey Rogow titled 5 Days That Taught Investors … Read More
The Emotional Investing Roller Coaster
There isn’t anything for me to add to describe the chart below compliments of Josh Brown at The Reformed Broker
The Biggest Threat To Your Portfolio
The Biggest Threat To Your Portfolio is a well-written piece by Josh Brown at The Reformed Broker who highlights that all of the current noise going around in the financial markets such as Greece, China, or the Federal Reserve is not the biggest enemy of your portfolio. The biggest threat to your portfolio is you. Brown notes in his article, … Read More
Where You Live Correlates to a 20% Investment Bias
We are always interested in learning more about our investing biases. Hat tip to Barry Ritholtz for posting the graph below. Looking at the list of stocks that I follow, I definitely have a tilt towards the industrials. I think that this is likely not only because I grew up in the Midwest and currently live in MI, but also due to my extensive corporate … Read More
You’re only human: An economist explains how it hurts your portfolio
More and more an essential aspect of portfolio management is the psychological or behavioral side of investing. Put another way to understand how your emotions, biases, and way of thinking affect how you invest your assets. Richard Thaler professor of the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago is widely considered to be the father of behavioral economics. … Read More
A Dozen Things I have Learned From…..
Two financial and investment bloggers that I follow on a regular basis are Barry Ritholtz and Ben Carlson. Another blogger whose content that I also read is Tren Griffin. Griffin runs 25IQ, a blog about business models, investing, technology, and other aspects of life that he finds interesting. He works for Microsoft; Previously he was a partner at Eagle River, a … Read More
Most investing is simple, but we complicate it
I am a big believer of simplification, especially when it comes to investing where there is still a significant amount of luck involved with investment returns. There is up to a certain point where a high IQ helps you before it starts to hurt you in the investment world. Morgan Housel of the WSJ touched on this in his article in which he zones in on … Read More
