In a former life I used to look over hundreds of private equity fund pitches every year for investment opportunities. A few things stood out in the similarities of these funds: Every single one of them claimed to be top quartile — either through past returns or the promise of future returns. 90-95% of funds…

The latest cover story for the The Economist asks if central bankers are Out of Ammo? Anything is possible, especially when there’s talk of negative interest rates in the U.S. some day. But this is a question that has been asked many, many times over the years throughout this recovery: August 18, 2009: Running Low on Ammo…

I’ve always thought that the financial markets acted as something of a real world experiment on human nature. Markets are interactive, involve a wide range of individuals making decisions and provide a scorecard that’s available for people to track in real-time. Watching the 24/7 news coverage of the presidential primaries kick into overdrive makes me…

In The Martian, Mark Watney discusses his travails while making plans while stuck on Mars: They say no plan survives first contact with implementation. I’d have to agree. I’m constantly pushing investors on the virtues of creating a comprehensive investment plan because it’s the most important step in the investment process. Security selection, asset allocation, market…

I live in Michigan. The firm I work for is headquartered in New York City. Twenty years ago it would have been nearly impossible to pull this off. Nowadays, with smartphones and wireless Internet connections, it’s easier than ever to work from anywhere. I know a handful of people who also work remotely or from…

“Most organizations are uncomfortable identifying what they will not do. It is not what you are willing to do, but what you will not do that most clearly defines what you really are.” – Charley Ellis When I first got my start in the investment industry I was consumed with figuring out everything there was…

My colleague Michael Batnick wrote a great piece last week that illustrates why investing in the stock market can be so challenging. I encourage you to read the entire piece, but there was one really eye-catching statistic he shared that I wanted to highlight. This chart shows the growth of $1 in the S&P 500, after…

In his book, Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics, Richard Thaler discusses a stock market experiment that says a lot about how people react to losses and their perception of risk: As in the previous experiment, the subjects had only two investment options, a riskier one with higher returns and a safer one with lower returns….

A few weeks ago I looked at three things that matter during a market sell-off. This sell-off has continued and investor angst grows. One of the best ways to avoid crippling mistakes during bear markets is to focus on what you can control. Here’s the follow-up with three things that don’t matter during a market…

Large cap U.S. equities continue to hold up well with the S&P 500 down roughly 12% from its all-time highs reached last spring. To some degree, this performance has masked the global bear market going on in the rest of the world. Take a look at this list of country ETFs from Bespoke Investment Group:…