Whenever markets fall investors look for comfort anywhere they can find it. Two favorite investor past-times include (1) finding someone or something to blame and (2) seeking out other investors or strategies that are performing worse than you are. It doesn’t make any sense, but for some reason people find solace in the relative misery…

Here’s one for the glass is half full vs. glass is half empty debate: As of today, it has been a record 118 months since the last major hurricane struck the continental United States, according to records kept by the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Hurricane Research Division, which list all hurricanes to strike…

When markets are rising, professional money managers typically feel terrible about their performance when they’re trailing their peers or their benchmark. They’re still making money mind you, but just not as much as everyone else is making.

In my last piece I said that you’re not really diversified if you don’t hate something in your portfolio at the moment. Stocks are the obvious candidate right now, as they were down anywhere from 6-10% in August depending on which market you’re looking at. But bad months are nothing. The true test of a…

A few readers have asked: How much diversification within my portfolio is necessary? I’ve received a variation of this question a number of times over the past few weeks. I can understand why individual investors would have a difficult time figuring this one out. The choices these days for building a diversified portfolio are nearly…

Some random thoughts and observations on a wild week in the markets:

In the early minutes of the stock market open on Monday morning things got a little crazy. After a huge whoosh down in overnight futures trading, the NASDAQ fell almost 9% while the S&P 500 was down around 6% right after the opening bell. Watching it in real time was a sight to behold. Less…

There haven’t been many safe places to hide from the current market sell-off. Here are the returns through the end of the day on Tuesday for a variety of markets and styles: I’m sure there are some select strategies that are holding up during this downturn, but from a traditional perspective, bonds are really the…

In my younger days, I used to get my haircut at an old school barber shop. It had the candy cane red and white pole outside and all. It was the kind of place where the barbers were more worried about the multiple conversations going on and joking around than sticking to a schedule and…

U.S. stocks were up nearly 400% in the 1980s. All anyone remembers is the 1987 crash. Bonds gave investors a total return of more than 100% in the 1990s. All anyone ever talks about is the 1994 crash when interest rates spiked. Emerging market stocks were up 185% in the 1990s. Yet we continue to…